My big excitement last Saturday was the letterbox arrival of the Iron Book of New Humorous Verse (edited by Eileen Jones and published by Iron Press) which has one of my poems in it.  The poem is ‘Please Rush Me’ and seeing as I can’t get to the launch in Newcastle, I read it at the Ballroom Cafe yesterday. 

Iron Press is a small press in North Shields, Northumberland (all the way over on the other side of the River Tyne from South Shields, where I was born).   I’m really enjoying the book, which includes well-known UK poets like Wendy Cope, Linda France and W N Herbert.  The Iron Press website says of the book : “Subjects include the annual shindig for Greenland’s literary elite, a paean to a wonderbra, a knitted orgasm, Superman’s pet lemming and a sonnet to a Yorkshire Pudding.”  Who says poetry can’t be fun.

I have made a video clip of myself reading the poem, which  I would have inserted into this post, but WordPress would charge me $US60 a year for the privilege.  Instead, I have made a new blog on Blogspot where I don’t have to pay to upload videos:

http://janisfreegard.blogspot.com/

Tim Jones did a fine job as the Ballroom’s featured poet yesterday – I’m very much looking forward to his next collection: Men Briefly Explained.  The Ballroom has really taken off as a poetry venue.  Next month, Saradha Koirala will be the guest poet.

Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday poems, via the quill button to the left.