Susie Wild's Blog: Wildlife, page 30

Gig Alert: Melville Centre, Abergavenny

Roll up, roll up for my 22nd and very last date of the Better Houses tour in Abergavenny on Sunday 22 April at 11.30am!  Susie Wild reads from her new volume of poetry, talks about writing it, and discusses questions raised by the audience.She says: ‘I will be reading from my debut poetry collection. Better Houses is about the places we inhabit in life, about relationships and the extraordinary in the everyday. It has all the key subjects: birth, death, sex, love and loss. At the book’s core, it is as much about moving house as it is about trying to centre yourself somewhere, to find a place to call home, to be still. I have moved at least every six months to two years in my adult life, sometimes through choice and often not. This draws on those experiences of packing and unpacking boxes, but it also employs fiction, humour and imagination. Other poems escape fires and great white sharks, test beds and language barriers and hunt fossils and comets, spells and adventures.’

Praise for Better Houses:
'Wild clearly has a sense of fun. Her poem, "Pub Crawl Date" – cataloguing a nine-pint epic evening out – had me chuckling out loud. So too, ‘The Bed Testers’. But, in my view, Wild is at her best when she is more serious and, to this end, there were several stand-out poems. [...] Similarly, there is a Plath-like forensic quality to ‘The Lash Museum’ which I also really enjoyed. It opens with "A gutsy Cornish wind / slammed the caravan door shut, / skinning a birthmark, / my head / a blood fountain." The poem’s protagonist is then raced to hospital for attention and when the stitches are removed, she keeps them as morbid reminders of her pain: "clumped lashes a-flutter / in a plastic pot."' – New Welsh Review

'As the title hints, Susie Wild’s book Better Houses touches on some of the pressing concerns of the era (the housing crisis, social inequality). In "Gentrifying the Area" she reflects on the rate of change ("three short months") that puts "tumbledown terraces" "on / the up, like the house prices". The poet reflects on her part in the process. She presents herself as the artist type whose cultivation of an area increases its value [...] Forced out in search of lower rent, the poem ends: "There are worse ways to be going, going / gone." It’s an interesting angle to take and reflects the book’s insistence to make the most of things, being whimsically enthused or tuttingly aggrieved with one’s (always temporary) lot in life.' – Edward Doegar, Poetry Wales

'Perhaps this is the message she wants to leave us with, the importance of opening doors and allowing for reintegration within an individual as well as across relationships through decency and kindness. Readers of all types will find something marvellous here.' – Mary Jacob, Gwales
'exuberant and smart [...] Half-remembered, half-invented, but wholly charismatic.' – Sophie Baggott, Wales Arts Review
Tickets: £8 (u18s and students: £4). To reserve a ticket, telephone 01873 853167 or email melvillecentrearts@gmail.com.The cafe/bar is open for refreshments from 11.00am.

Some Snaps from The Forecourt Fringe and The Laugharne Weekend

Well that was a Laugharne Weekend! Thanks to the lovely Meinir Min Evans for having us at the beautiful draped The Forecourt Fringe on Saturday and Sunday. Such a pretty stage to perform on. Thanks to my co-host, driver and star poet Natalie Ann Holborow and to my wonderful readers including Oliver James Lomax, Mari Ellis, Rhys Owain Williams, Tyler Keevil, Sion Tomos Owen, Anne Pelleschi and Lee Prosser. 
Beautiful music from Sion and the man forever to be known as Tyler's (no good) brother. Thanks to Emyr Young for the photo studio Parthian is 25 shoot, and to Jeff Towns and Huw Davie for the book bus gig and gifts and to all of you who bought our books / us drinks and entertained/charmed/impressed us over the weekend. 
I also really enjoyed seeing other acts at The Laugharne Weekend as well including Euros Childs (favourite gig of the year so far), Joe Dunthorne, Garth Cartwright and Travis Elborough and having a really good dance to Eugene Defreine French.
The Parthian 25 celebrations continue at London Book Fair on Wednesday. See some of you there.














Credits: Lee Prosser, Natalie Ann Holborow, Siôn Tomos Owen and myself
Now: Recovery position! (And marking student work).

Next Gigs: The Forecourt Fringe, Laugharne

This is going to be great! Readers added include Mari Ellis, Natalie Ann Holborow, Mark Blayney, Rhys Owain Williams, Tracey Rhys, Lee Prosser plus music and readings from Siôn Tomos Owen and Tyler Keevil and his brother. More TBA! We are there 11am-12noon Sat and 11am-3pm Sun (music on Sunday too) and as a bonus, I'll be reading too. Come along! (Friends who fancy reading too drop me a line and I'll see if I can fit you in).

Some snaps from Milieu VIII

My hair is on fire:

My name on a blackboard:

My fellow poets:

I decided to dye my hair peachy

I was feeling a bit of a grumpy gigging gypsy and I decided a change was needed. So, these

plus bleach and this

became this...

My friend's daughter cut my fringe too, it is straighter than it looks here, she is a trainee hairdresser.
I like it.

Next Gig: Milieu VIII in Cardiff

Poetry Wales review Better Houses

Edward Doegar reviewed Better Houses for the new issue of Poetry Wales, here's the start of the review:
"As the title hints, Susie Wild’s book Better Houses touches on some of the pressing concerns of the era (the housing crisis, social inequality). In ‘Gentrifying the Area’ she reflects on the rate of change (‘three short months’) that puts ‘tumbledown terraces’ ‘on / the up, like the house prices’. The poet reflects on her part in the process. She presents herself as the artist type whose cultivation of an area increases its value:
Thank uswith our strawberries and herbgarden, our five runners,beany social climbers,racing each other up bambooto blue-sky investments,blue-sky returns.
Forced out in search of lower rent, the poem ends: ‘There are worse ways to be going, going / gone.’ It’s an interesting angle to take and reflects the book’s insistence to make the most of things, being whimsically enthused or tuttingly aggrieved with one’s (always temporary) lot in life. Wild veers between being overly jolly and too intentionally profound."
[...]
In the summary final paragraph of the review he writes 'Wild veers between being overly jolly and too intentionally profound.' and I think I'm going to put 'overly jolly and too intentionally profound.' on a Tshirt and, maybe, a tote bag now.

Review: New Welsh Review on Better Houses – 'Wild clearly has a sense of fun.'

New Welsh Review Reviewed Better Houses, here's an extract:Wild clearly has a sense of fun. Her poem, ‘Pub Crawl Date’ – cataloguing a nine-pint epic evening out – had me chuckling out loud. So too, ‘The Bed Testers’. But, in my view, Wild is at her best when she is more serious and, to this end, there were several stand-out poems. [...] Similarly, there is a Plath-like forensic quality to ‘The Lash Museum’ which I also really enjoyed. It opens with ‘A gutsy Cornish wind / slammed the caravan door shut, / skinning a birthmark, / my head / a blood fountain.’ The poem’s protagonist is then raced to hospital for attention and when the stitches are removed, she keeps them as morbid reminders of her pain: ‘clumped lashes a-flutter / in a plastic pot.’
Buy Better Houses for £8.99 from Parthian

Review: NWR on Better Houses

New Welsh Review Reviewed Better Houses:Wild clearly has a sense of fun. Her poem, ‘Pub Crawl Date’ – cataloguing a nine-pint epic evening out – had me chuckling out loud. So too, ‘The Bed Testers’. But, in my view, Wild is at her best when she is more serious and, to this end, there were several stand-out poems. [...] Similarly, there is a Plath-like forensic quality to ‘The Lash Museum’ which I also really enjoyed. It opens with ‘A gutsy Cornish wind / slammed the caravan door shut, / skinning a birthmark, / my head / a blood fountain.’ The poem’s protagonist is then raced to hospital for attention and when the stitches are removed, she keeps them as morbid reminders of her pain: ‘clumped lashes a-flutter / in a plastic pot.’
Buy Better Houses for £8.99 from Parthian

Next Gig: Satellite of Love, Bristol