Blog pals

Last night I went along to The Great Grog Poetry Night and had the great pleasure of meeting Barbara Smith. She is just as I expected, a warm and intelligent woman. She was first up and she read extremely well, which is a tribute to her courage for travelling to a new city and reading to a completely new audience. Her poems really come alive when she reads them, especially the ones about her family - the characters walk right off the page.

The other three readers were also very enjoyable, especially Alan Gillis, whose rhythms and amazing word choices rocked the joint with laughter and wonder.
And Claire Askew's work featured some really unusual themes, and Sally Evans read from her series poem The Bees, which is beautiful and features an elephant. I bought a copy for myself, but feel I must share it with my young nephew who is mad about elephants - to the extent that he fashions them from the red wax on Baby Bellings!

Well done Rob MacKenzie, it was my first time at Grog, shore leave is not easy to get around here, but I loved the relaxed atmosphere of the event. And he has some stellar future line-ups too.

I've have so much going on here it is just crazy. Arrangements for Heart Notes launches are going well, although I really struggle to do this kind of thing - it seems to feed every insecurity I have.

Also took great pleasure from noting some happy events with other bloggers, A Wanderer in Paris is expecting a baby and Absolute Vanilla has got married. Both lovely reminders that life is all about change!

Now back the chaos that is my life right now!