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Torriano Time
Read Full Post: Torriano TimeA long-running small independent poetry series in London, Torriano Poets, is running its second ever poetry competition (proceeds to the Torriano Meeting House Support Fund). Here are the details:
First Prize £250 Second Prize £150 Third £75. The winning poets, first, second and third, will be offered feature readings at the adjudication celebrations on Sunday, 4th February 2007 at Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Avenue, Kentish Town, London NW5 2RX United Kingdom.
NO ENTRY FORM REQUIRED
= Poems up to a maximum of 40 lines each to be typed on a single side of A4 paper
= A separate sheet of A4 should contain the titles of poems, name, land and e-mail addresses and phone number of entrant
= Entry fees: £3 One poem, £5 for Two, £10 for Five. Cheques payable to Torriano Support FundADJUDICATORS
Anna Adams, Leah Fritz & Peter Phillips (poems will be read by all three adjudicators)ENTRIES TO
Diana Baggs, 1 Havelock Road,Walmer, Deal, Kent CT14 7TE United KingdomENQUIRIES
Tel: +44-(0)1304 372914 or email: june.english@btinternet.comCLOSING DATE
12th November 2006. Winners will be notified by 7th Jan 2007. The winning poems will also be featured in Brittle Star magazine. -
Plum Wonderful
Read Full Post: Plum Wonderful
Ooh, even better than Lightning Cake – but not as good a name – is Dutch Plum Cake which I found in my mother’s 1955 edition of Good Housekeeping, a book in even worse physical condition than the Boston cookbook. This one has silver duct tape on the spine and crumbling pages. Luckily someone else has copied out the recipe for me. I didn’t make the vanilla sauce; it was lovely warm and on its own, or with ice cream. And a good way for me to use up a little of my personal warehouse of home made jams and jellies!
I’ve been enjoying a blast of end-of-summer reading. A wonderfully easy and useful book on my table just now is 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell, by Chris Hamilton-Emery, a poet himself as well as the publishing director of an excellent UK press, Salt Publishing. In a neat demonstration of zeitgeist, it’s appeared at the same time as Wendy Morton’s memoir about the poet as self-promoter, Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Hamilton-Emery’s book gives some incredibly useful background on the poetry publishing industry (if that is the word for this labour of love) and a host of well-organized and practical suggestions for poets and publishers alike to get this slowest of all selling genres out into the world.
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Back to school
Read Full Post: Back to schoolThere’s the inescapable edge of gold on the maple leaves, the geese are gathering on the Gorge and the wasps are getting cranky and slow. The blackberries are getting tasteless and starting to wither, the autumn apples are beginning to drop. Those of us blessed with the permanent-student gene are feeling itchy for new stationery, the crack of textbook spines, the scent of printers ink.
And so, narrowing my view to avoid inconvenient questions like how I’ll afford it, or how I’ll make 10,000 arrangements in 60 days, I’ve accepted a place in a year-long master’s program at the Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences in Colorno, near Parma in northern Italy.
No, it’s not a cooking course, or even a study of stomach ailments – at least not deliberately – just a year of learning about food. The courses include:
Food History and Elements of Food Culture
Wine History and Wine Culture
Food Anthropology
Sociology and Psychology of Food Consumption
Journalism and Web Page
Techniques of Food Photography
Sensory Analysis
Culinary TechniquesField trips are required, throughout Italy and in France, Spain and southern Germany, in order to study pasta, cheese, cured meat products, oil and wine. Luckily it’s taught in English, as my Italian was bad even before it was rusty, though there are language classes and of course a lot of opportunity to practice. So now I have a couple of months to get ready for the next adventure.
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
