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The VOLE Summer Competition

​’AUTUMN MAKES ME SING’

Open to international entries
Entries invited up to 31st July 2024

NO THEME (despite the title):

Dorothy Parker famously said:

‘Summer makes me drowsy.

Autumn makes me sing.

Winter’s pretty lousy,

but I hate Spring.’

Poems on any subject are invited

1st Prize: £50; 2nd Prize: £30; 3rd Prize: £20.

50 poems will be selected and published in an anthology
and all poets included will receive a free copy
www.dempseyandwindle.com/competition.html

Orbis 209, Autumn 2024

Front cover artwork: ‘Underworld’ by David Jones
Back cover, detail from image: www.davidjonesart.artweb.com

***

Orbis 200: What a beautiful looking edition ! Must get this. 
Congratulations on the magazine’s longevity and high standards

  (Anna Saunders, Director at Cheltenham Poetry Festival)

Orbis 200: ‘All the best to you, and to Orbis!’
(Glyn Maxwell; shortlisted for Best Collection in the Forward Prize)


‘Best wishes for the journal – and congratulations on such a successful magazine over the years’ (Joy Harjo, United States Poet Laureate)

****

Single issue: £6.00 (Overseas: £12/€14/$16); Subs: £20/4 pa (Overseas: £45/€50/$60)

Associate Editor (Book Reviews): Maria Isakova-Bennett

Reviews by: Philip Dunkerley, David Harmer, Jenny Hockey,
D.A. Prince, Theresa Sowerby, Pam Thompson

Please note with new collections, press release in first instance
to the Book Reviews Editor – not review copies.

****

Literary journal that we are, still room of course for Dr. Basudhara Roy’s 
Littoral Dream, and I expect you, along with Sue Wallace-Shaddad 
will be Finding That Connection though perhaps at first a little Adrift,
like Kathryn Daszkiewicz. If so, join Gill McEvoy at The Sunday
Quaker Meeting, and then Mike Farren could introduce you to 
Lily, Edmund and boy, or Ian Harker, to The Shape-Shifting Ghosts
Of Byland Abbey; the latter may also make you wonder,
as does Nigel King:   Where is thy sting? Well, instead, you
and Linda Ann Strang  could be  Swimming The Sacramento,
or discovering why Kevin Bailey  is At Eastbury, Berkshire. 
And if you worry about it all going  To dust (Andy Oram),
or feeling Blue, maybe Sukrita Paul Kumar’s poem
can help, or Patrick Moran’s Robin –
 or any of those waiting for you to enjoy in this issue.

Featured Writers

More winning poems from the Red Shed Competition:

Heather DeLand, Bound for Greatness;
Lisa Falshaw, Love letter & Birds at Bempton Cliffs;
Mike Farren, Lily, Edmund and boy;
Ian Harker, The Shape-Shifting Ghosts Of Byland Abbey;
Nigel King, Where is thy sting?

Poets include Keko Prijatelj, His wife and himself;
Anne Sheppard, I sit here sipping pink champagne;
Linda Ann Strang, Ghost in the Jonquil;
Ping Yi Yee, The Blade Sings Life: Safety First

Prose from Rosie Adamson-Clark, A Woman Of Syria;
Anthony Head, Last Post from Tokyo;
Anne Sheppard, The Birthday Present 

Translation: Marc Tritsmans, Nadering; translated by John Irons

Past Master: A C Clarke on Paul Éluard

Orbis 209 Contributors also include
Anna Bowles; Attracta Fahy; Linda Ford; Bill Greenwell; Pauline Hall;
Chris Hard
y; Betty Hasler; Derek Healy; DG Herring; Dr Kuli Kohli;
John Lanyon; Daphne Milne; Annie Klier Newcomer; Donna Pucciani;
Chris Scriven; Colm Scully; Michael Swan;
Vivienne Tregenza

*****

 

April 26, Liverpool Playhouse

Reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

8/10

A magical and meaningful production which draws out so many parallels with life today, 80 years on, there are nearly as many lines as those spoken by the excellent cast. In other words, so many lessons to be learned in this iconic tale of animals taking over. Near as damnit, the lunatics running the asylum, with their delusional ideas and grandiose so-called victories.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fascinating Aîda

Floral Pavilion, New Brighton

February 1, reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

4*

Who says women of a certain age are invisible? Three cheers for the ever glamorous, and indeed, downright sexy (not sure I’m permitted to say that, but damn sure they wouldn’t object) Fascinating Aîda, who not only make their presence felt but are so in your face you can see the whites of their eyes as the sweetest of harmonies deliver vitriol in the sharpest of points; a fabled, and fabulous, iron fist in a velvet glove. And you needn’t think the audience is full of, shall we say, women in their prime either because

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French House Party

Creative Writing Course, Carcassonne, Southern France

June 20-26

Pen &Think: Tutored Retreat

www.frenchhouseparty.eu/creative-arts/writing/

Read the rest of this entry »

October 19-23

War of the Worlds

https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/the-war-of-the-worlds


Reviewed for North West End: www.northwestend.co.uk

 

4*

What a tangled web we weave, especially these days when the Internet ensures all kinds of information reach the parts that other sources can’t get to. Fake news can make people belligerent or else scare them out of their wits, just as it did with the broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’ years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

October 12-16

Dracula: The Untold Story
imitating the dog and Leeds Playhouse

Adapted and directed by Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks


https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/dracula-the-untold-story

 

Reviewed for North West End: www.northwestend.co.uk

3*

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and here we are on Route 66 (or should that be 666?), since that’s their year (read on…), and a young lady has just walked into a police station to confess to murder. But she says her name is Mina Harker…

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July 17- August 30

Pride And Prejudice

Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre

https://www.grosvenorparkopenairtheatre.co.uk/

Reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

4*

It is a truth universally acknowledged – that you absolutely do not need to open with such a well known quote, or variations thereof, even if it establishes that most people know what you are talking about, and a plot summary is not required. Nor that such a familiar tale couldn’t prove damn’d tricky to be given enough of a spin to sprinkle it with stardust and make it fresh and original. It succeeds wonderfully.

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August 19-30

Jungle Book

Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre

https://www.grosvenorparkopenairtheatre.co.uk/

Reviewed for Writebase: https://writebase.co.uk/

 

 

3*

They say the sun shines on the righteous, so here, only right that the forecast of rain was incorrect – though it became a biblical outpouring almost as soon as this swinging performance finished. Read the rest of this entry »

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