Readings, recollections & awards

Please join The Charles Causley Trust at The Eagle House Hotel, Launceston at 7.30pm on Thursday 16th October 2008 for a special event:

Charles Causley's Saints & Sinners

Prizes will be presented for the 2008 Causley Poetry Competion by Trust patron, The Lord Tyler of Linkinhorne, there will be readings from Causley's work, and an update from Arts & Books on the progress of developing the new literature agency for South West England.

£5.00 to include admission & refreshments.

Tickets from The Bookshop, 10 Church Street, Launceston, 01566 774107.

Presented by the Charles Causley Trust Reg. No. 1102459 & The Charles Causley Society in conjunction with The Friends of Lawrence House Museum.

The River and the Rope Bridge by Greta Stoddart

The River and the Rope Bridge

Let's try and get halfway then stand firm,

rein in each rough jerk and shudder.

But the merest sway in the wind has us

wobbling hopefully on towards the bank

or crawling back to the woods we know.

The river beneath has seen it all before.

Like us it has nowhere special to go

but goes there all the same. All the same

you'd think it'd stall and darken but no,

it'd still sparkle in the sun, go on

(Go on!) if we gave up and jumped in.

Greta Stoddart

Poet of the Month: Greta Stoddart

Cyprus Well Stories is very proud to announce its first Poet of the Month, a continuing series that will highlight the work of writers in the South West.

Our very first poet is Greta Stoddart, with 'The River and the Rope Bridge'.

Greta's first collection At Home in the Dark (Anvil) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize 2002.

Her poems have been published in many newspapers and magazines including The Independent, The Spectator, Poetry Review and TLS.

Greta Stoddart is a tutor at the Poetry School, the Arvon Foundation and Bath Spa University.

Her second collection Salvation Jane will be published in September 2008.

She lives in East Devon.