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In search of inspiration
Hello Kindreds,
How has your month been?
I’m going to start this update with a plea.
If you have bought Your tears fall like pearls on Amazon, first of all – thank you! Secondly, please, please leave a review. The Amazon page for Your tears fall like pearls is looking very lonely with 0 reviews on Amazon and 1 review on Goodreads :(. If you enjoyed the book, it would be great to let other people know.
If you didn’t buy the book on Amazon, please give a rating or leave a review on the Goodreads page. You’ll need to sign up for a free account first, which doesn’t take long. Thanks in advance for your support.
What I’ve been up to
This month, I have switched focus a bit away from poetry to other creative activities. This was for both inspiration and distraction. Despite writing a book about grief and loss, I found myself surprised again by how much grieving there is to do. This is the way of it, my next Quota.
This month I:
– went to a talk on the power of aesthetics at Drawing Room gallery (Who knew? There’s a whole venue dedicated to drawing)
– went to Search Party, an intimate evening with playwright and poet Innua Ellams, diving into his archive of poems and essays
– went to the Black British Book Festival at the Barbican
– fit in a quick trip to the seaside
– went to Morphe Arts day, a mixture of talks and creative workshops and an exhibition
– performed at an open mic session at Station Ten
Phew!
At Drawing Room, I learnt about the power of aesthetics for political change. Aesthetics is the opposite of anaesthetics; aesthetics means to ‘sense’ just as anaesthetics means ‘to de-sensitise’.
At the book festival I heard how Rastamouse author Michael de Souza, a swimming instructor by trade, marketed his first book without using social media. I was really interested to hear this – social media can be quite exhausting.
I was also inspired by Malika Booker’s poetry and hearing about the poetry collective that she started from her kitchen table. It has sustained the work of many prominent poets, careers and was a place of support and critique. Community is so important for artists. I’m part of a group gathering artists at my church at the moment, so seeing the fruit of other artistic collectives was encouraging.
At Morphe, I learned how to create a screen print with a pasta machine and an orange juice box! An important point made in Donna Matthew’s talk was about resisting the urge to rush to the next thing (very relevant) and how to de-centre the self and centre listening to God.
I’ve also been reading more books. Publishing a book has really made me think about the whole eco-system of publishing; publishers, bookshops, libraries, the lot. My love of writing has come from the copious amounts of books I read as a child. I have a large book collection but I’d stopped reading physical books so much. I’m enjoying it. As someone said recently, ‘books don’t have any ads in them’!
Book things
I sent off a copy of Your tears fall like pearls to the British Library, which makes it feel all official! A permanent record of the book in the national archive. I also noticed a few copies on sale on Ebay with a mark-up. I found this a shock at first, but actually it’s quite encouraging. It shows that other people think it has value at least!
I’ve been sending this newsletter out for over a year now! It’s gone very quickly. I have found it really useful, but what about you? I originally planned for this to be a monthly update so I only email subscribers once a month, although I occasionally post on this site as well. Is it too much, too little, too long or just right? I’d love some feedback on the app or by email – do say hello!
Adukehwrites
I’ve set up another publication, Adukehwrites, to write a bit more widely, tell some stories, do some book reviews, and see where that goes. So if you are interested, do sign up.
That’s it from me for now.
Till next time.