Things that are on

Sat 21 Sept: Balkan Peace Park Project AGM, Kings College, London, from 2pm. Ffi:http://www.balkanspeacepark.org/news.php - all welcome.
Sun 22 Sept: DANSwithMe Bristol 2 - an afternoon of solidarity with the anti-government protestors in Bulgaria on Bristol Harbourside, also from 2pm:https://www.facebook.com/events/507435076008991/ - all welcome again.
Tue 1-Sat 12 Oct: '100 Miles of North of Timbuktu' - Theatre West stage my play about three chancers who accidentally find themselves with the power to play God:http://www.almataverntheatre.co.uk/theatre/what-s-on.html
Wed 16 Oct: a scene from 'Man Diving' gets read as part of BOV's Open Session fortnight.
24 Oct: me talking about travelling in SE Europe at Stanfords bookshop as part of Bristol Festival of Literature: http://unputdownable.org/event/on-the-road-off-the-page
11-15 Nov: 'Deeds Not Words': Ship & Castle debut another new play, this time about the Suffragettes and the Edwardian government.

Bulgarian protests

Running through the centre of Sofia are the 'yellow pavements'. A wedding present for Tsar Ferdinand from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, they're sturdy enough to have supported the rolling tanks of communist Bulgaria's military parades. Now they are the scene of anti-government protests which see thousands of people taking to the streets to demonstrate against the all-too-familiar triumvirate of power, corruption and lies. Even though the protests are soon to reach their 100th consecutive day - on the Monday after the 105th anniversary of Bulgaria's declaration of independence on 22 September - media coverage outside Bulgaria has been, at best, sporadic. This, it seems, is because, in the early days of the protests, the few foreign correspondents that the west European media still employs were engaged with the Edward Snowden story and because editors were unwilling to commissions stories about protests which don't involve 'violent clashes'. Tellingly, media interest peaked on Day 40 when protestors blockaded the parliament building in Sofia, trapping MPs inside - the only action to result in wielded batons and bloodied heads. It would seem that, if you want to attract the west European media's attention, the most effective course of action is to start ripping up paving stones.
Such a course of action, though, is not characteristic of the Bulgarian protests. Despite years of anger and frustration, the protestors remain peaceable, warm, good-humoured. Last Saturday (Day 84), a national holiday, there were fewer people out on the 'yellow pavements' than normal, but the street was still packed with protestors of all ages, from toddlers to students, parents to pensioners. The message to the Bulgarian government is simple: 'Octabka' (resign) - a word chanted over and over, to the accompaniment of drums, whistles and horns, or written on banners, cards or pieces of paper sellotaped to lampposts. People carry umbrellas: in Bulgaria, spitting is a metaphor for lying - and the protestors feel they're being rained on by watery lies. At the protestors' camp outside Sofia's second parliament building, we stop. Beside bubble tents and two pianos, the umbrella contingent line up at the railings guarded by unsmiling police. A stationary crescendo of drumming, whistles, horn-blasts and boos gives way to the Bulgarian national anthem, sung acapella. And then everyone sits down. It might be the start of an urban picnic. What it is is one minute's silence in memory of Georgi Markov - the Bulgarian journalist killed in London in the 1970s by a pellet of ricin delivered by the tip of an umbrella. The centre of Sofia is at a halt. Later there will be beer and ice-cream, and someone playing one of the pianos, a model of a communist-era building made from empty coffee cups. For now, there is silence on the 'yellow pavements' - and soon it will be Day 100.

WWW.NORESHARSKI.COM POSTS REGULAR UPDATES IN ENGLISH ON THE BULGARIAN PROTESTS.

10 July Day 27

For Vasilena

This evening, squabbles on the bridge,

contested rights of way:

wheels locked, one cyclist

mouthes off at another,

a pram’s slewed across the pedestrian lane.

Tempers quickened by seasonable heat

disperse in complaints, muttered protests,

fading after-thoughts. Outgoing,

the tide inches back from algae’d banks.

*

No news again, but photographs online

are reminders of the elsewhere

which friends can see as making good ...

in whose name they have marched:

that much might be deciphered

from mechanical translations.

This evening, boulevards and plane trees,

the hushed rally’s footsteps:

so little for us to go on

in our own “wild country, far away” ...

*

But this evening, the belief,

reparation, an ordinary square

with tables, coffees, laptops,

and, in diminishing light,

the first sound of voices

and bird flocks startled upwards –

unfamiliar words, Facebook updates,

and then, settling in, a rain of doves.

*

In this, my own wild country, far away,

backgarden laughter, this evening,

and those easily forgotten complaints.

Tom Phillips

The girl from the belle époque

 Draft of a poem of sorts

Sometime into a half-hearted summer,

we're still pinning our hopes

on showers clearing

and redemptive sunshine after rain.

Umbrellas flex along the waterfront –

or, collapsed, poke from a bin.

Across Europe, cities are loud with protest,

though you’d hardly know it here.

Sporadic wi-fi connections bring

stray hints, old news, a photograph.

On edge amongst the package tours,

we’re looking down into

perfect reflections of day-trip boats

moored at the quayside,

seeming ghosts of sunk ships.

Or overlooking the city

from a flat warehouse roof.

It’s temptation back to days –

those days – when, stalled

in this same, familiar light,

you were halfway up the garden path

and she was in shade,

arguing the politics,

a few exotic steps across the grass.

Tom Phillips 2013

Reading Poetry Festival 5-9 June

The first Reading Poetry Festival takes place this week, with an Italian poetry day, a children's poetry day, readings, conversations, workshops and exhibitions at the Museum of English Rural Life. The line-up includes Iain Sinclair, John Hegley, Carrie Etter, Peter Robinson, Zoe Skoulding, Mark Ford and poets published by Two Rivers Press. Full details, poems and an online magazine here: http://readingpoetryfestival.com/

On Sunday (9 June), I'll be running a workshop in the morning (10am-12noon) and reading from Recreation Ground (Two Rivers Press, 2013, http://tworiverspress.com/wp/category/people/tom-phillips-poet/) as part of the Two Rivers event in the early evening (5-6.30pm). Again there are more details here: http://readingpoetryfestival.com/

Poem: To the Northern Station

They come at me – and pass

like missed trains, failing

to stop on schedule, trailing

a line of lamp-lit heads.

I used to know them as faces

in remembered scenery,

and how the light fell, or rain

held off, and what was said.

       *

At the fag-end of a long haul

I’m looking out on what’s expected:

mountainous horizon,

boys kicking hard against shale

to swing up and onto

empty carriage stairwells,

while sun glints on minarets,

wrecking yards, apartment blocks.

In the aloof vacancy of a ticket hall

puddled with water, nothing moves.

We push at the door, step outside –

and then everything does.

Tom Phillips

Taken from the e-pamphlet The Dream Library & Other Poems (Various Artists 2013, variousartists986@gmail.com)

London Magazine review

Recreation Ground (the book) is reviewed by David Cooke in the latest London Magazine alongside new collections from James Brookes and Conor Carville - in an issue which also includes Michael Horovitz on Soho Bohemia/the Beat Generation in London, new poems by Helen Dunmore and Philip Gross, Edward Lucie-Smith on Jamil Naqsh and Tom Sykes on Dervla Murphy. Ffi here: http://thelondonmagazine.org/