Dawn Gorman believes poetry should be everywhere - puts it on beermats, uses it to
work with people with memory loss, facilitates writing workshops, organises poetry
events and runs international poetry competitions. She is widely published, and has
performed in New York, Paris, London - and lots of smaller places in between.

“Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket;
you put your life into it and make something out of that.” Mary Oliver

Lisa Brockwell

Guest Poet: Lisa Brockwell

Lisa Brockwell lives on a rural property near Byron Bay, Australia, with her husband and young son. She was runner-up in the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize in 2015 and has been highly commended in the Bridport Prize. Her poems have been published in The Spectator, Australian Love Poems and Best Australian Poems. Her first collection, Earth Girls, was published in 2016 by Pitt Street Poetry. www.lisabrockwell.com

Beatrice Garland

Guest Poet: Beatrice Garland

After a first degree in English Literature, Beatrice Garland worked as a National Health Service clinician, teacher and researcher in psychological medicine. She has won both the National Poetry Competition, and in 2002, the Strokestown International Poetry Prize. Her first book, The Invention of Fireworks, was short-listed for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She has a second collection, The Drum (Templar Press), to be published this year.

Kate Noakes

Guest Poet: Kate Noakes

Kate Noakes' most recent collection is Paris Stage Left, Eyewear Publishing, 2017. Her website, boomslangpoetry.blogspot.com is archived by the National Library of Wales. She was elected to the Welsh Academy in 2011. She lives in London and Paris.

29th June 2017, The Swan Hotel, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1LN

There were some bold, witty, and life-enhancing poetry moments at Words & Ears at the Swan last week - warm thanks to guest poets Beatrice Garland, Lisa Brockwell and Kate Noakes, and to everyone who joined the open mic - Liz Watts (with a poem about her direct experience at Borough Market on June 3rd), Ruth Sharman, Stephen Payne, Kate Escher (writing powerfully about bureaucracy), Mark Sayers, Andy Fawthrop, Ray Fussell, Rose Flint (with a haunting poem about 7/7), Peter O'Grady, and John. The strong current of determination, love and tenacity in the face of adversity that ran through the evening was held for us by Beatrice's poem about the aftermath of 9/11, in its gentle sense of hope and its plea for diversity - the diggers 'touching their knuckles gently to the rubble', and the seeds from many different species of grass taking root in bared earth. Kate Noakes' poems from her collection Tattoo on Crow Street, in which she interviewed people about their body art, were especially memorable, and also those about her time spent living in Paris ('every day I walk within two inches of a gun'). And Lisa's performance from memory of her three-part poem Uluru, a profound cry in the desert about loss, was particularly moving.