Tuesday, June 15, 2010

So the night has come and gone and it feels good to have conquered my first proper poetry reading!
I was sick all day Saturday and really thought I might not make it through to Edinburgh after all my preparation and planning  but thankfully I stopped throwing up by Sunday morning.

I was first up to read which meant I could relax and enjoy all of the other readings. All that practice of reading my poems to the kitchen walls paid off. Once I started the nerves disappeared, I looked out over everybody's heads and read my poems as if I was in my own wee house. I actually really enjoyed it!!

Phillis Levin is a lovely, dainty woman, she and her husband had been staying at St. Andrew's and they kindly said that they enjoyed my St. Andrew's poems. Jon Stone and Kirsten Irving were up from London and they both read very well, plus there was David Kinloch, a very tall and prominant Scottish poet. It was a great variety of readings and lovely just to be there and get a chance to meet and chat to folk. Everyone was very friendly, especially the other poets which was nice because I was slightly afraid of them at first!! I came away with signed copies of Levin's latest collection May Day, Kinloch's Un-Tour-dEcosse and Stone's recently published Happenstance pamphlet Scarecrows. I also won a book of selected poems of Blake Morrison in the raffle! So plenty of reading to enjoy.

3 comments:

Titus said...

Oh Marion, well done and I'm so glad it went well for you! I get a bit wobbly ten minutes beforehand, but I really enjoy readings.
Has it left you wanting more reading opportunities? And did you do your work the justice you wanted to?
So sorry I didn't make, terribly hectic weekend etc. and no baby(child)-sitter.
Here's to the next one!

Roxana said...

i am so happy everything went so well and you seem to have enjoyed every bit of it :-)

Marion McCready said...

thanks titus, I'd love to do more readings now. I was surprised at how easily I read having read much more nervously at the open mic nights, but then I did practice my set to death!!
I read them exactly how I wanted to, only wavered at one point but managed not to give way to a smirk, if I had it would all have been over! David Kinloch mentioned the Mirrorball readings in Glasgow, I might see about trying to get a reading there sometime.


thanks roxana, I really did enjoy it but it's such a relief to get this first reading out of the way - I felt like I'd passed an exam afterwards, such relief and lightness!