hangover towers

Well, I'm hungover for a good reason: we have launched Isobel Dixon's fine new poetry collection, A Fold in the Map (Salt), and we have floated it out to voyage on a river of free South African wine. The people at Foyles, which hosted the party, were absolutely delightful - until probably just after 9pm, when the several-floored shop was suddenly and repeatedly plunged into darkness, and the merry horde of literary revelers was unceremoniously ushered to street level and dumped on the pavement! (Cue fond reminiscences of my own young days, working at Penguin and having to coax drunken writers out after parties so as to tidy the shop up for work the next morning.)

The room was abuzz with poets, and literary agents, and novelists, and interestingly there was quite the little blog presence. (Of course novelists write blogs!) Various other blogs were discussed, too ("Who is Madame Arcati?" we cried). Bonding was bonded and friendships, old and new, were unbounded, speeches were made. Isobel made several pairs of eyes well and redden with a reminder that her "poetic family" was born in Michael Donaghy's famous workshop, which of course made everyone think how very happy and proud Michael would have been to be there last night. (Mental note: don't do this at Baroque launch! But it was lovely, of course, and for just a moment he was there.) She read only two poems from the book, one about her mother and one about her father: both I'd never heard before, and they were tantalising. How often are you left at a poetry reading wanting more?

Isobel's poetry is quiet and economical, but very warm with it. (She beat me in a competition three years ago, Oxfam Poems for a Better Future, where she came first and I came third: hers was short, clean and direct; mine was written in the voice of Henry James. Hmm...) Her poems are often like this, and come at some clear truth often from a surprise angle. The book is largely about her childhood in South Africa and her family, with pictures of her father on the jacket and a section about his illness and death and life in the family since then. It's very moving, and yet life-affirming (sorry for the word), power-packed stuff. Worth having a look.

Anyway, in our little gang we are now waiting for Simon Barraclough's first collection, Los Alamos Mon Amour, out from Salt next spring; after that it'll be my turn. For now, I might just have a little lie-down. And I've got something to read.