cinnamon at costa poetry cafe, Liverpool

Glasses - I never move without them – I can’t remember ever being anywhere without them- my eyesight is so bad I'm not allowed to drive - even with the glasses, so imagine my horror when I'm alsmost in Liverpool (from ~North Wales) and discover I have no glasses with me and I'm about to launch my prose poetry collection, Stale Bread & Miracles.

Anyway I tried Rowan’s glasses, but still couldn’t see the words. When we got to the cafe I stood under a light with a torch for extra impace and could make out odd words and shapes, though horribly blurred. Someone managed to find a little magnifying strip, but I couldn’t use it constantly as it blurred the words and I couldn’t track along lines – to read poetry you need a bit more than one word at a time to get the scansion right ;)

I could make out enough through the blurry shapes to jog my memory while there was daylight and went over and over the pieces. By the time I got to read it was about 9.00 p.m. and the daylight had gone. I could see next to nothing so it was a 90% memory, 10% torch and magnifying prompt job.

And it was a pretty good reading :) I think the combination of concentration and high octane adrenalin saw me though – not something I’d want to repeat and my body is still coming down, but it worked and the audience was great. You can see for yourself on YouTube - it should be up later today and is at http://uk.youtube.com/user/cinnamonpress

Joan Hewitt, also reading for Cinnamon, was brilliant and you can find her performance on YouTube too - on Cinnamon's new channel courtesy of Rowan.