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

Rebecca Gethin

Guest Poet: Rebecca Gethin

Rebecca Gethin lives on Dartmoor. A pamphlet, All the Time in the World, has just been published by Cinnamon Press who also brought out A Handful of Water in 2013. Another pamphlet, A Sprig of Rowan, is due in March from Three Drops Press. New poems have appeared in magazines and in anthologies such as Driftfish and in the forthcoming Ledbury Poetry Festival's Poetica Botanica. She is a Hawthornden Fellow and runs the Poetry School seminar in Plymouth. Her website is www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com

17th April 2017, Greenhill Cottage Gallery, Brokerswood Road, Southwick, BA14 9PR

When Liz Watts suggested I ran an edition of Words & Ears within her ceramics installation Beached at Greenhill Cottage Gallery, I immediately said yes, because the gallery is such a wonderful space and because Liz's work is stunning. But I didn't anticipate it working quite so well as our Easter Monday event. That was down to a combination of things - Liz's inspired staging of her award-winning, sea-themed ceramics; guest poet Rebecca Gethin's superb, salt-tanged sets, which took us to Zennor and Co Donegal, into the company of turnstones, mermaids and whales and to the dark side of the lighthouse; and to the enthusiasm of the audience and open mic contributors, who really entered into the spirit of things with some great sea poems. Lovely to see new faces, Words & Ears regulars and old poetry friends - Lesley Saunders, Ruth Sharman, Paul Brokensha, Chaucer Cameron, Tom, Sue and Iris Anne Lewis among others. My thanks to gallery owner Martyn Slade, to Liz and her family, and, poignantly, to Mary, Martyn's partner, who, after last year's event at the gallery with Cristina Newton said to me 'we must do another one of these soon'. Sadly, Mary passed away at the end of the summer; for me, the evening was a fitting honouring of her enthusiasm and support.