April Poetry

Our first Session of the year will be on Friday 22nd April at The Folly in Settle at 7.30pm

We're delighted that well known Settle based poet Jean Stevens will be launching her new collection with us. 

Jean Stevens

Jean is a poet and playwright. Her poems have been published in numerous magazines, newspapers and anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio Three and Radio Four. She has won the Yorkshire Post Poetry Prize and Leeds Library Writing Prize. Her latest collection of poems Beyond Satnav has just been published by Indigo Dreams. Her previous collection Undressing in Winter was launched at Ilkley Literature Festival. Her poems range from the lyrical to the colloquial, from the moving to the witty and, although her work is rooted in her response to the Yorkshire Dales where she lives, her writing embraces the world from Australia to Zimbabwe.

 

Anne Caldwell

Also reading her new work during the evening will be Anne Caldwell. A poet and literature consultant,  

Anne works for the British Council as their Literature Programme Manager. Her latest book of poetry is out with Cinnamon Press this spring: Painting the Spiral Staircase.

 

Taking part in "Read Two", an open mic session are local people sharing their favourite poems:

Jackie Allott was born and brought up in Otley but has lived in Settle for 12 years. She qualified as a Social Worker and spent much of her professional life working as an Independent Review Officer for NYCC. She can't imagine living anywhere else but Yorkshire. Explorative learning is the challenge now and playing with the imagery and ideas in poetry, a quiet and sometimes teasing pleasure!

Beryl James moved to Settle from Exeter in 2014. She is a lifetime sporadic poet although her output over 60 years has been small due to life intervening. She finds it a good way of expressing strong feelings and says that it may be writing that has kept her sane!

Jean Lavelle was born in Blackburn but has lived in Langcliffe for the last 21 years. She has taught both Art and French, worked with physically disabled children, and brought up a family of five. She is a lover of theatre and has had a lifelong interest in poetry.

Tricia Robinson has always enjoyed poetry and written it, but just for herself. She has drawn it from family life and also from living and working in Africa and Spain. Only three members of her family, and more recently Jean Stevens, have ever read or listened to it until tonight. 

Tickets are £6 (£5.50 for members) and will be available from The Folly, Cave and Crag and The Dairy Courtyard, all in Settle.



Settle Sessions will have 4 evenings of poetry and short stories this year, including a celebration of National Poetry Day on October 6th at Settle Victoria Hall, with a national and local poetry competition running through the summer. More details at settlesessions.co.uk and info@settlesessions.co.uk


For more details contact Jean Harrison on 01729 823305 or info@settlesessions.co.uk

Excellent evening rounds off the year

We were delighted to round off our year with yet another excellent group of writers and poets.

Once again we had a very successful session with an enthusiastic audience. 

Two established poets, Ann Pilling and Chris Considine, had chosen Settle for the launch of their new collections. Ann read from about her life in Hawes, her family and life experiences while Chris focussed on the idea of home, the remote Dales cottage she inhabited for many years and what it was like uprooting herself to move to Plymouth. 

We also had four other readers, Ron Scowcroft from Lancaster, Bob Dew from Kendal, Gavin Wilshaw from Bentham who each read two of their own poems and Kathy Swinscoe from Settle who read two poems she particularly liked by Edward Thomas.

We would like to thank the Anne Read, the curator of The Folly for the use of a beautiful room and the provision of a wood fire that made for a very cosy evening.

2015 has proved to be our most successful yet, with top rated writers and poets bringing stimulating and enjoyable work to Settle.We'll be back with a series of evenings of words and poetry in the Spring. 

Keep an eye on our website for more details

Distinguished and new voices combine in final Session

The final Settle Session of the year starts with a reception open to everyone and a brief AGM followed by a strong programme of published and new poets. The evening takes place The Folly in Settle on Friday 20th November at 6.30pm.

"We've had a very successful year and look forward to celebrating this with friends and members in our reception to start the evening" said Jean Harrison of Settle Sessions. "Our final Session of the year brings together highly respected published poets, with voices new to Settle as well."

The evening's entertainment features two leading poets reading from new work associated with Yorkshire.

Chris Considine is a poet and former school-teacher who lived for many years in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, before moving to Plymouth in 2011.

Chris Considine

Chris's latest collection, In Search of Home, is about her move from Yorkshire to Devon and explores what it means to belong somewhere – what we might mean by ‘home’. Her Swaledale Sketchbook was shortlisted for the Forward Prize in the best first collection category in 2002. Other publications include St. Cuthbert and Bystanders, Learning to Look and Quarll, and Behind the Lines. At the beginning of 2004 she was a Hawthornden Fellow.

Ann Pilling is a distinguished writer of children's fiction and a poet, winning prizes and accolades for both careers. She will be reading from her new collection Ground Cover, poems about remote places, ageing and being young, about death and birth , and about the natural world and its power to redeem. Ann is a trustee of Settle Sessions and lives in The Yorkshire Dales which she calls "the country of my heart".

Ron Scowcroft

Also on the bill will be four writers airing their work in the brief "Read Two" section. Alan Pascoe is a playwright and poet with work heard on BBC Radio 3 & 4. Bob Dew is a priest who has found the space to write in retirement in The Lake District.

Bob Dew

Completing the bill are Founder member of Lancaster's April Poets Ron Scowcroft, and Gavin Wilshaw

Gavin Wilshaw

who writes both humorous and spiritual pieces.

 More information from settlesessions.co.uk or 01729 824537. Tickets £6 (£5.50 members) available from Cave and Crag, The Courtyard Dairy and The Folly.

Excellent combination

We were very pleased to bring together the establishment and the newcomer in our September Session! 

Meg Peacocke and Kim Moore graced the evening and brought a wide spectrum of emotions and observations to the evening.

Mike Barlow was very impressed:
Last night’s event was excellent. Both Meg and Kim. And what an interesting combination, the up-and-coming and the established and venerable. I’m just sorry there wasn’t a bigger audience. It deserved a packed one.

And I thought the local readers reading other poets’ work was also very good to hear and a nice change.


In the Read Two slot, locals Anne Richer, Sandra Fox and John Raubenheimer brought some of their favourite poems to share with a very appreciative audience

Some audience reactions:
A very good balance of speakers • Always an enjoyable evening • Great poets this evening • it was magnificent, the best yet

The next evening will be on Friday 20th November, starting with wine and nibbles reception. This will be your opportunity to suggest how you would like Settle Sessions to be in 2016.

The Best of Britain's new and old!

Meg Peacocke

We are delighted to bring the best of the country's leading young and mature poets in September!

Rising star Kim Moore will share the platform with doyenne Meg Peacocke who is still publishing poems in her eighties.
 

Meg Peacocke began publishing poems in her fifties, when she gave up everything she'd done before and started a new life as a smallholder in Cumbria. She had written since childhood, but academia, teaching, marriage and family and counselling work, buried the writing mostly though not the need for it.

One of the country's leading poets, Meg won the highly prestigious Cholmondeley Award in 2005. She collaborated with her late brother the composer Richard Rodney Bennett on a number of musical and written pieces. She has published five collections – a sixth should be out this autumn – but as she says "the most important poem is always the next, the one you’re trying to get to grips with now".

Kim Moore

Kim Moore was born in 1981 and lives and works in Cumbria. She has quickly caught the ears of the Poetry world with her down to earth and accessible work. She has just taken part in the "Poetry and Songs" Festival in Vlieland, Holland. Her first full length collection “The Art of Falling” was published by Seren in April 2015. She won a New Writing North Award in 2014, an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2012.

In 2014 Kim was Poet in Residence for Ilkley Literature Festival and Digital Poet in Residence for The Poetry School. Her first pamphlet ‘ If We Could Speak Like Wolves’ was a winner in The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition, judged by Carol Ann Duffy.

The evening is on Friday 11th September at 7.30pm at The Folly in Settle. Tickets are £6 (£5.50 members) and available from The Folly, The Courtyard Dairy, Cave and Crag or 01729 823305. Contact info@settlesessions.co.uk for more

Summer activities with Settle Sessions

Settle Sessions is on the road this summer - to Settle Library!

Do you know someone under 10 years old who loves to write?

We'd like to see them!

If you have children or grandchildren, bring them along to our exciting poem writing sessions at Settle Library on Thursday 20 and 27th August from 2.30pm to 4pm.

These free, fun and friendly activities are aimed at children under 10 and last about 1.5 hours. The children will be helped and encouraged to write their own poems. 

We're also hoping to ask some of the children to read their poem at our next Settle Sessions held at The Folly in Settle on Friday 11th  September. You never know, we might discover a young Simon Armitage or Carol-Ann Duffy!

To book places please contact Settle Library - Catherine Barlow on 01609 535820  extn 5820
Email: Catherine.Barlow@northyorks.gov.uk 

More information from Settle Sessions's Kathy Swinscoe kathyswinscoe@gmail.com

Imaginative, gripping, compassionate, entertaining

5th June  - review

Once again Settle Sessions provided a wonderfully varied programme of prose and poetry.

Jean Harrison

Local writer Jean Harrison, well known as a poet, read extracts from her debut novel 'On a Wandering Planet,' a highly imaginative book which gripped her listeners from the start.

Neil Curry

Jean's prose impresses as much as her poetry and the themes of loss, search and redemption are woven into an exciting story that challenges the way society chooses to live. Her characters are rich, complex and alive on the page. 
 

Neil Curry, an established poet and literary critic, read from the poems in his new book 'Some Letters Never Sent' as well as from his earlier work. His poems have a great depth rooted in scholarship and knowledge but are accessible through a careful choice of words, a compassionate tone and perfectly judged humour, and he drew the audience in by entertainingly giving us the background to his work.

Annie Neligan and Ali Easton

Sarah Wiltshire and Anne Richer

In Read Two, Sarah Wiltshire read poems described as 'noticing in words'; Ali Easton read poems in response to the natural world; Annie Nelligan read poems which gave us vivid pictures of people; and Anne Richer read from the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy's book '1914 Poetry Remembers'.

Jean Stevens