12 December 2013

Cheltenham Poetry Festival reading confirmed, 6 April 2014, 12.30 - 2 pm.
Will be reading with Paul Hayward, who will be discussing and reading from the rediscovered and republished work of his father, William Hayward, a poet and novelist from the fifties.

7. 12.13 Another Guardian letter today  -on Mandela. Short snippet only.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/you-chose-to-care-mandela

Also new Quadrant poems out now. December issue in shops.

4 December 2013

My take on Higgs Boson - Warwick Review, December Issue, out tomorrow.

29 November 2013.

Date now set for  this winter's 'Contemporary Witness'. I'll be reading with my Workshop Poets on
28 January 2014, at the Albion Beatnik Bookshop.

Remembrance Sunday. 10.11.13

This poem of mine was published in Australia last year by Les Murray in the international literary magazine, Quandrant.

(PS somewhere between cut and paste here and the actual News page on website, the last line of this poem has floated down a little - nothing we can do apparently. Sorry.)

‘Pro Patria’

Armistice Day

In green utility boiler suits

they could be here to fix the heating,

except for embellished wings

on each straight shoulder. One of them

still sports tooth braces, two

wear wedding rings.

                  They’re in logistics,

fly supplies out overseas

and their plane to Afghanistan is late.

               I remember another café,

a man who’d consumed his crew

to survive an arctic air-crash -

he ate alone, a speaking space

around him -

              the stench of shadows

             seeps from these men too.

                            I want to tell them

we flinch from each butchered body

the plane brings back, they torment

us like ghosts we cannot disarm -

     but hesitate, while poppy sales

     scream daily of fresh kill.

Olivia Byard

28 October - Quadrant. Two more poems will appear in the December issue.

15 October - unhappy with some of the embroideries used for banners. We're redoing - should be finished tomorrow.