I had a fabulous day at Bellaghy. Really enjoyed it and looking through the book, I really don’t know how the judges chose a long-list at all from all those wonderful poems. So impressed!
The thing I wrote last year is what I still exactly think.
And, in my opinion there is a problem. I got to Bellaghy because I was at one time in a class at the Crescent with David Atkinson so I had his email address and I mailed him to ask if there might be any chance of a lift from any town with public transport, and he knows Susan Gully because they are in the same poetry group and he put me in touch with her and she kindly offered to take me from Lisburn… so I was excellently sorted and got to meet her and am so glad!
Also at one time I worked on Annemarie Mullan’s egg stall and at the last minute there was a place in your own car so, you see, I am now quite the Well Connected Person so in fact had Two Options 8)
But.
The thing that is really great about this book is that the poems are chosen blind and Who You Are … or Who You Know … doesn’t come into it. Which is why it is such a massive thrill to have your work chosen for the book. It is the real deal.
But, if you don’t drive then it is definitely Who You Know and what strings you can pull that means you can or can’t get to the event and, to me, that goes completely against the spirit of the competition being Open to All
Also my best friend, Anita Gracey, who has a truly epic All Three of her poems in the book wasn’t able to get there at all because she has a neurological condition called Friedreich’s Ataxia and is in a wheelchair and though Susan measured her car, it is low to the ground and in the end Anita didn’t feel she was able to take the chance of going to Lisburn (a bus and a train) to not be able to get into the car … so she couldn’t go.
So although I had a really great time, myself, I just don’t feel good about it. That I could get there and she couldn’t. If you see what I mean. That’s just about what I think.
And I know CAP is always short of money but maybe with a carshare list or organising a wheelchair accessible minibus funded by a GoFundMe which we would have a couple of months to use Social Media to fund ? or there must be some way of making the journey to Bellaghy accessible to at least anyone who is in the book and wants to get there … at least for anyone who can get to Belfast City Centre or the airport park-n-ride maybe. Because Bellaghy is lovely but it is an utter sod to get to on a Sunday without a car. Plus a bus is a heap of fun. Think of Inclusivity. And saves petrol .. think of the planet !
