Caroline Bird at Forty Hall 5 June 2024

Caroline Bird visits Enfield Poets at Forty Hall

Enfield Poets were delighted to welcome Caroline Bird to their meeting at Forty Hall on 5 June 2024.  The Hall was looking its best in the evening sunshine and our visitor showed her appreciation of the setting by acknowledging all the “words absorbed into the brickwork” over the years as she took to the floor after the welome and introduction by Valerie.

Caroline described finding her early voice by “blowing up my life and writing from the debris” but says that now she is settled and happy with her wife and son, she writes while being ambushed while staying still – hence the title of her current book Ambush at Still Lake

Comfortable in her leather jacket and jeans, she read with confihttps://amzn.eu/d/bqEuywtdence and spirit, her voice filled the room and she looked up, around and smiled at her audience who were captivated.

She read Last Rites which showed her way of juxtaposing love with the horrific; a “prose poem trick that looks like a harmless paragraph and then mwhahaha”

Nannie Edna couldn’t accept that her dying wish was borderline psychopathic……. She wanted to dangle her great-grandson from her apartment window….’My own family believes I am capable of dropping a newborn baby from a twelve-storey building and, deep down, I suppose, I’ve always known this about myself,’ she said, slipping away.

Caroline had listened keenly to the open mic before she began her reading, referring to Greensleeves, and responding directly to Julian’s poem with her poem Ants.

The cereal cupboard is alive
With errant mannerisms
Like droplets of coffee in space

Caroline spoke about writing poetry so “I don’t have to endure the thing itself” but then recounted  New People about her time in rehab in Arizona; bare, honest and stripped descriptions of people:

One guy strolls in for Christmas
dinner, loads a plate with shrimp
he doesn’t eat, his pupils like distant
stars blinking through cloud.

Fascinated by the different, the quirky and the absurdities of life she spoke of people that marry things, that don’t marry people.  She was enchanted by the idea of someone marrying the Berlin Wall – “of all the walls to choose to marry!” and read Megan Married Herself which showed both her compassion and understanding of others but also a keen and wicked sense of humour shown in her eye for detail.

She arrived at the country mansion in a silver limousine.
She’d sent out invitations and everything:
her name written twice with “&” in the middle,
the calligraphy of coupling.

Caroline was completely at ease now, the audience warm and welcoming.  She spoke of having been in hiding, pretending to be straight and how she felt now – proud and was aware of the fact she was here in Pride month. She talked openly of her therapy and its effect on her writing.  Ambush at Still Lake and A Shaken Leaf reflect the worries that can rock domesticity and contentment in terms of shoot-out endings and tragedy on a trip to a National Trust garden.

An imagined conversation between a mother of a three-year old and a sperm donor clinic in Vial gave another insight into her unique sense of humour:

‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘He’s…The Radiator Killer.’
I put the rinse-aid down.

Caroline’s unique voice gleamed through again as she read Checkout which she describes as “a love sonnet of sorts”:

                                             An angel
approaches with a feedback form asking
how I’d rate my life (very good, good,
average, bad, very bad) and I intend to tick
‘average’ followed by a rant then I recall
your face like a cartoon treasure chest
glowing with gold light …

Caroline’s last poem charmed everyone.  Dream Job is inspired by something her son said and the “toddler logic” of his imaginary café giving a peek into their relationship.

and the boss, he’s so calm
poking playdoh in his office
like he’s been fudging discrepancies
in the books for some time,
watching his Ponzi scheme crash

Caroline was generous and helpful in the Q&A that followed.  Describing writing poetry as “like trying to dream while you’re awake” and “expressing a wordlessness using words” endeared her even more to the audience as did her description of having to “unlearn to encounter” which has been given a catalyst by watching her son encounter things for that very first time.

She described spending her first savings on poetry, finding the line:

They got me because if a forest has no end I’ll go naked

in James Tate’s I take back all my kisses.  Her other inspirations include Charles Simic, Ruth Stone, Russell Edson and Sharon Olds.

Caroline told us that “your poem will tell you what you don’t know you feel “ and left the brickwork of Forty Hall with more wonderful words absorbed into its brickwork and an audience inspired by her vivacity, authenticity and imagination.

Caroline Bird’s website