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You can’t really be chatty about losing your home, your family moving
away and your relationship breaking up. But that’s only the reality. Why
worry eh. Here I am in a really cosy hospital bed. No! In a lovely new house
with a garden I haven’t had a garden since forever. No really forever. Now
here I am next to the Cloud Factory. Live has been good in lots of ways. Meeting some new friends. Some
really lovely friends. Hello. You know who you are. And I thank you. I have had a few changes of career. More on that in a mo. I have been elected on as a trustee for Survive North Yorkshire to
give a bit back for the help I have had. I have become more spiritual. As a regular member of two spiritualist
centres. I get enough messages to shake a stick at. I got the old rocking
chair out of the storage unit pretty damn quick. Some guy stands up on the
stage at the church and says I have got your granddad here, he says it is
terribly dark. You have to get rid of all the boxes and let some light in.
There are boxes right up to the ceiling all around me. What do you need all
this stuff for and Grandma’s chair is tipped up in a corner between two of
the boxes. Nobody should sit on that like that. I’ve got Grandma here….. I got down there and got the chair out of storage pretty damn quick I
can tell you. As for the new careers. I am an arts exhibition promoter. I am doing
ghost tours I am studying York history. I am a storyteller. I Am a TV
Presenter. I sell angels and fairies. I am on the board of a company. I am a
bargeman. As for the storytelling. I am saying that topic of light was my first
ever commission as a storyteller. But it is a bit like the which came first
Let It Be or Abbey Road situation. They made one first but released the other
first. Well the second commission I received was the topic of barges and
the riverside. But I have already done
that one and the light one isn’t till October. So now I am wondering, er,
well, just how very sad I am? Hang on I’ve just remembered—I work in a café! In the Poemspotters section I thank Esther Wheatley, Nancy Bennett,
Carol MacAllister and Katherine Ebury for all their help and friendly
support. Katherine is the only I meet up with in the flesh as she is my new
research assistant. Many thanks Katherine, you are great We meet up every
week, well in term time and she has been helping me in lots of ways. She has
proof read, offered poems of her own and of others, researched and advised. As a literature student she can do voluntary placements so as well as
a school she decided she would like to come and spend time in my kitchen.
This has been really useful and often research has consisted of her knowledge
and me listening. No need for books when I can ask and her answer is thought
out and sourced. A real growing experience for us both. For instance I challenged her
to write me a free verse example and we have ended up with her first ever
accepted work being for Poemspotter. I might rave briefly about Xanthe Gresham the storyteller. I AM VERY
IMPRESSED. The caps came on by mistake then, but I am jolly well leaving them
in. Here’s the email I sent Anne Mortimer straight afterwards. thanks and also for the other day i thoroughly enjoyed the evening especially i was mesmerised (after i got my breath back) totally captured by her art i don't give praise often either i find it hard to enjoy other spoken word type acts but didn't have moments hesitation with xanthe although i suppose i was learning as we go along i was lost in the story well away form the flaw of analysing i can honestly say i have never listened to someone reciting poetry
from memory before and enjoyed it it is always so laboured with the line length and the rhyme heavily over emphasised (even mel gibson gets the thumbs down from me!) but i didn't even realise it was structured to rime till half way through nearly although the resonance assonance and alliteration were relished and
absorbed such presence too i was held in her look and felt the longing emotions of the ageless narrative through her
words, actions and eye the hero in my heart has been restless since and stirs to strive forward even as we speak thanks again ade yer can quote me on that too |