Linocut by Jill Kerr The great thing about friends, friends, is that you can acquire new ones without diminishing the value of the existing ones. Last week I made a brief foray from the bosom of my o...
When I am prime minister, dear reader, every funeral will have dancing. Thanks to her brilliant and brave daughters, friend Ann (always the life and soul of the party) got a send-off that was worthy ...
Ann’s house The range is lit, and in the kitchen we are talking about men and things that matter. In the window there are cherries in a dish, and winter. Night wakes on the hills, goes hunting on the...
In my world, dear reader, every month is NaPoWriMo. However, as this one draws to a close I feel particularly saturated by both poetry and rain. I am just back from leading a weekend of workshops Yes...
….that my book has been reprinted? Oh I did? I really am very pleased with it*. So, I hope are the lovely people who bought it last night, after my reading at the Bluecoat in Liverpool with Ada...
Surprisingly proud-making.... So, dear reader, here’s big news. The reprint of my book Navigation is with me and I’m frankly bowled over; it feels like a whole new book. Why so excited? A...
Today’s NaPoWriMo effort is posted in haste as I’m off to pick up the reprint of my book. I’m on the road after that for a few days, so those of you who’ve ordered a copy will...
With the first performances of Riverlands over, we have a break until our next one at Macclesfield’s Barnaby Festival on 24th June. Jo Blake Cave and I will tweak it a little to make it fit for...
Riverlands: the show at Aldwincle, Northants Your blogger, looking confused Last weekend Jo Blake Cave and I premiered our new show Riverlands, based on our travels on the river Nene in Northamptonsh...
Yes, I’ve been lax in posting but I have been writing during NaPoWriMo, partly for our new show Riverlands which opens tomorrow in Northamptonshire. We’re performing on Saturday and Sunda...
Todays writing project Dear reader, I wouldn’t want you to think I was slacking. However, I am off to Barcelona tomorrow and if I have the time or opportunity to post on my blog, well I wonR...
Telling it like it is In my former life I was a professional archaeologist – for eighteen years. Yes I know, I don’t look old enough. My specialism was industrial archaeology – coal...
Ahoy me hearties. This is record-breakingly close to the wire – posting five minutes before midnight! I have had, dear chums, a day so crammed with meetings and so forth that I have not been ab...
Yesterday I made no contribution to NaPoWriMo. Today I’m back with a terrifying new energy. There are three reasons for this. The first is that I spent last night in Stoke on Trent at the Film ...
Well folks, I did serve my time on NaPoWriMo today but the result was nothing to blog home about. So instead, I’m going to file it under ‘time not wasted, but poem not worth sharing’...
My finest moment Yes, alright, this is another cheat. I am easing myself into NaPoWriMo with a recent poem, not written specifically for the challenge but (in my defence) finished only last week R...
NaPoWriMo again? Oh goody Yes, we must. It is National Poetry Writing Month and like a sucker, I have signed up again. Yes, I know it isn’t our nation, and it’s gimmicky, and it works on ...
Saint Valentine – as you know, dear reader – is the patron saint of beekeeeping, epilepsy and fainting. History does not record why there are so few poems about epilepsy and so many about...
No, it bloody well isn’t. Oh alright then, yes it is – usually – on a narrowboat. This time last year we had been frozen in for six weeks, whereas the turn of 2011/12 finds the cana...
Really, I have no idea This strange girl, at least, was born to tell YOU what you missed this year in the world of poetry. Stand by for a mammoth blog, as I announce the Bell Jar awards for Lovely Po...
Birmingham this afternoon Remember Birmingham? Big city in the middle of the country. Talks a bit funny. Well, it’s gone now. Instead there is a huge German market full of Belgians (don’t...
It’s snowing on my blog, dear reader. Draw up a chair by the fire and let us contemplate the written word; a thing more powerful than the atom bomb. Consider first how it can make one think dee...
Horses for (poetry) courses Sex appeal, dear reader, is all very well; but it won’t get you very far in the Peak District in November. The forecast for Saturday was ‘and in the north R...
Reading in a maternity dress, for some reason What’s that you say? It’s about bloody time I got another book out? I know, I know. Recent work with talented upstarts like Max Wallis ̵...
You wait for a blog post for ages, and then two come along at once. I couldn’t wait to share this one: I’ve been sitting on my hands for weeks while Alastair Cook got on with the hard cra...
Yes, I’ve been to Skye. But we’re not going to talk about that. Pay attention: I have said it before, and I have said it again, and I will say it West Port: Peggy and Kay in their element...
Celebrate!.
On stage at the Royal Festival Hall Here’s a thing: I feel fraudulent when I’m introduced as ‘the director of National Poetry Day’. Oh, I like the important-sounding title, an...
Poems, films, books. New poems and short films from Jo Bell.
Thinking poetic thoughts Yes, you’re right. It has been very quiet here at The Bell Jar. I was busy, all right? Actually this summer was not the usual orgy of festivals, because I was determine...
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