Charles Causley Trust Website Launch

New Blog for The Charles Causley Trust

The Charles Causley Trust has a new blog:

www.thecharlescausleytrust.wordpress.com

The blog will be an important part of the new Charles Causley Trust website, and will be used to update on news and events. Drop by for a visit!

Thank you, and watch this space ...

Cyprus Well Stories is about to head off in two very different directions. Both Cyprus Well, the new literature charity for South West England, and The Charles Causley Trust have new websites imminent. It will be sad to say cheerio to our temporary home here at blogspot, but we're looking forward a lot to the new websites when they arrive. When they're up, we'll put another message up here.

Meantime, thank you for reading, and especially, to the poets of the month, thank you for letting us read your work. We hope that the Poet of the Month feature will carry over into one of the new sites and we can keep that going.

Best wishes and see you soon!

Mother, Diving by Andrew Forster

The high diving board at the open-air pool

taunted my Mother like a tongue. While young boys

leapt from the first board, clenched like stones,

she held herself in by the pool-rail.

Then one day she just shrugged off the shallows,

strode like Johnny Weismuller to the deep end.

I had no idea what she was climbing towards

but she reached the top, balanced above

the craning necks, and stretched. A short run

and she sprang into the charged air,

making new shapes for herself: twisting

and turning like a dolphin, plunging into the water -

a guillemot, sending out relentless waves

that will keep on nudging me off balance.

Poet of the Month: Andrew Forster

To celebrate the friendship between the Charles Causley Trust and the Wordsworth Trust, this month we're delighted to welcome Andrew Forster as the Poet of the Month.

Andrew Forster grew up in South Yorkshire and lived in Scotland for twenty years before moving back across the border to Cumbria. His poems, essays and reviews of poetry have appeared widely in magazines. A pamphlet 'Dress Rehearsals', was published by Flarestack in 2000, and his first full-length collection, 'Fear of Thunder', was published by Flambard in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

He taught creative writing and developed writing projects for a number of organisations, including the WEA, Edinburgh University, and Community Education departments in a number of different regions. From 2003 to 2008 he was Literature Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway, and developed, among other projects, the Wigtown Poetry Competition. He currently works as Literature Officer with the Wordsworth Trust, in Grasmere. He is putting the finishing touches to his second collection, 'Territory'.

This month's poem is from Andrew's collection 'Fear of Thunder' (Flambard 2007)

Photo: Henry Iddon

A new name for a new agency

The new literature charity for the South West of England will be called Cyprus Well. The new name proudly celebrates the future home for the charity in Charles Causley's house at No. 2 Cyprus Well in Launceston, Cornwall. While development continues on the house, Cyprus Well will have a second home in Exeter Central Library.

Cyprus Well is charity to enable and nurture literature development activity in South West England: Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire, unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, Plymouth, Poole, South Gloucestershire, Swindon and Torbay.

Cyprus Well will fundraise for and deliver a programme of literature activity awards for all non-profit organisations and individuals to create new literature development opportunities. This is called Grass Roots Literature South West.

Cyprus Well will lead, fundraise for, create and administer a new literature network for South West England: Literature Network South West.

Cyprus Well will support writing and reader development in South West England.

The charity will be recruiting trustees soon.