Lewes Voices at the Elly: Clare Best, Catherine Smith and Jeremy Page

Three Frogmore poets read from recent collections at the Lewes Voices event at the town’s Elephant and Castle pub last week. 

Clare Best's Cell

The evening began with Clare Best reading from her Frogmore artefact Cell, which won first prize in the Second Light Poetry Competition’s long poem category. Cell  is written in the voice of Christine Carpenter, a 14 year old girl who, in 1329, took a vow of  ‘solitary devotion’ to become an anchoress.

  

Catherine Smith

In a subtly different vein, Catherine Smith entertained the audience with her ballad The New Cockaigne (Frogmore Press, 2014), a ‘verbal feast of sexual, gastronomic and alcoholic excess’. 

Jeremy Page

The evening concluded with the launch of Jeremy Page’s new Frogmore pamphlet Stepping Back: Resubmisison for the Ordinary Level Examination in Psychogeography, which brings together poems written over the last twenty-five years exploring his relationship with the coastal town where he spent his formative years. 

All three titles are available post free from The Frogmore Press or from Skylark in its new roomier quarters downstairs at the Needlemakers in Lewes.