Celebrating NATIONAL POETRY DAY 2006: this year's theme is IDENTITY

This is my first NATIONAL POETRY DAY on Poets On Fire, so an extra-special occasion for me this year! Events are taking place all over the country today to celebrate poetry, far too numerous to mention, from pub open mics to the major poetry day schedule of workshops & readings getting underway in a few hours at the Poetry Society headquarters in London (22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden, if you're in the area).

Running a Poetry Event?
If you know of or run a live poetry event, at any time of year, that you'd like to see posted up here on POETS ON FIRE, please email me (see sidebar for details) about 4 or 5 days before the event. Any earlier and I tend to forget. One day beforehand is usually a little late for my tastes, and on the day itself is a no-no. But otherwise, I'd be happy to hear from you.

Remember to include ALL pertinent details, such as time, venue, names of poets performing if you know them, entrance fee, any special rules or things people need to bring, and it would also be helpful if you could include at least a contact email or website for queries.

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So have a great NATIONAL POETRY DAY, and if you can't get out to a performance, stay in and curl up with a poetry anthology or favourite collection or audio tape/CD. Whatever you're doing, think poem!



As for me, I'll be in the Great Hall tonight at Warwick Castle, where I'll be reading at the launch of this year's WARWICK WORDS FESTIVAL.

Maybe see you there!

And to finish up today's special posting, here's a poem of my own on the theme of this year's NATIONAL POETRY DAY: 'Identity', to be published this month in 'Boudicca & Co' from Salt Publishing



Hot Days in the Eighties

On hot days in the eighties,
you stopped for ices at Taunton Services.
Little did you know then, twenty-something
in the white Ford Escort Estate —
radio on full, heater too, blasting out
to keep the engine cool — the traffic jams
from Portishead to Liverpool.

That was the decade of the motorway.
You chopped your locks in the back
of the car one day, dyke-short.
Kept dental dams in the glove box,
grew the hair under your arms
to a mousey fuzz. Purchased
a map of the highways, went native.

You wore a suede jacket and a crucifix
in the ‘V’ of your chest, strode
like a man (and the rest). Drove
a Lancia Delta into the dirt. Years later
it was a Mercedes camper van,
seven berth, and beads, hippy skirts,
needing to get close to the earth.

These days you don’t get out much,
stuck in with a husband and kids.
But the road’s strong, it hauls on you
like a blackbird on the worm,
and you find excuses — friends ill,
time alone — for the grip
of the wheel, a licence to roam.

Jane Holland