Fiona Sampson - More late maths - A34

Tonight I was read to by:

Jennifer McGowan
Paul Surman
Fiona Sampson - Roehampton Poetry Centre - Poem Magazine
Pat Winslow
Jane Spiro
at the Albion Beatnik

Jane had written something specially for all of us, which was moving and just what I needed. As the evening went along I got all sorts of ideas for what I might want to write about. That must be high praise for a reading.

The one problem with a reading is that I can't see the words, or how they are laid out on the page. I am so used to seeing and reading them that it is a big jump to simply have to do without. They just flow past and are gone. There is no custom of posting a playlist afterwards, as it were, of what a poet had read out on the night.

Maths

When I got back H needed me for an hour of subtraction and long division. He still thinks I am a bad teacher, but I say that you learn anyway, because of and also in spite of your teacher. It's just a tricky business. A real teacher will be grumpy and tired, particularly coming up to midnight, and may well lie back in a chair and shut her eyes and say 'Yes, that's right' without looking.

A34

The A34 is the whole of life in microcosm. We see pheasant in a field, a motor boat, a huge span of steel girder, many mobile homes going southwards, trucks with tied on loads which I now overtake as carefully and quickly as I can. The ambulances flow through blocked traffic like butter, we all shift over like a well oiled machine, then shift back into position.

If the traffic is terrible I go to the pub beside the school for an hour from 9.15am. I always take work to do, so I can sit there in peace with a coffee. It is the Royal Sun. Very welcoming.

Yes, I do have some poetry events in my diary

1. Pity of War, St Michael Northgate, Oxford, Sat 13th Sept, 5.30 - 6.30pm

2. Poetry Weekend/Festival, Lower Shaw Farm, Swindon, 2nd to 5th Oct

3. Fiona Sampson reading, Albion Beatnik Bookstore, Walton Street, Oxford, Fri 17th Oct, 7.30pm

For a moment I had thought there was nothing on my horizon, but then I looked more closely and hit gold.

My French grandmother put dates of fascinating museum talks in her diary so that she had things to look forward to and could invite friends to. My brother follows this rule now.