Among the many highlights within Issue 46 are:

• An extract from Tim Parks’ latest novel, the unnerving and insightful The Server (Harvill Secker, May 2012)
• New poetry from Julie-ann Rowell, Neil Curry, Caroline Price, Marina Sanchez and David Attwooll
• Sue Colbourn interviews Matthew Knight, a clinical psychologist with Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, who has been using poetry in therapeutic settings since the late-nineties, with some staggering results – including a wonderfully moving account of a man who spoke after four years of silence upon reading Wordsworth  – the power of whose words is further explored by Gillian Clarke, Stephen Gill, Bernard O’Donoghue and Raymond Tallis
• Brian Patten features in the regular Poet on His Work feature, writing a no-holds-barred account of the inspiration for his poem Stepfather (which is this week’s Featured Poem on The Reader Online)
• New fiction in the form of an absorbing short story, The Magpie by Mark Godfrey

The joy of Wordsworth’s words is also revelled in by Jane Davis, who ponders over the pleasure of Lines Written in Early Spring whilst being amongst nature; more stories from the Reading Revolution from Penny Markell, who takes us through a day in the life of the Get Into Reading London Project Manager, and Casi Dylan talking about how good mistakes can be made in endeavouring in the adventure of shared reading; and an exclusive preview of the latest Reader Organisation anthology, the utterly enchanting A Little, Aloud For Children, introduced by its editor Angela Macmillan.

Perfect summer reading if you’re lounging around poolside somewhere more reliably sunnier or just on the lounger in the garden.

If you’re already subscribed, you can expect Issue 46 of The Reader to land on your doorstep anytime soon and if not, then what are you waiting for - subscribe to receive your copy today.

One of the official Olympic poets for 2012, Lemn is also associate artist at the Southbank Centre and was awarded an MBE in 2010. He recently became a patron of The Reader Organisation and will be appearing on the panel discussing ‘Literature and Children’s Wellbeing’ on Day One. As someone who spent 17 years growing up in the care system, Lemn is passionate about improving the lives of Looked After Children through initiatives such as our own Get Into Reading project.

He will also be appearing in conversation with TRO’s Jane Davis at Day Two of our conference, a day exclusively designed for those who have completed our Read to Lead training.

Here’s a preview of his thoughts:

What is the last book you read that moved you?

A Love Letter from a Stray Moon by Jay Griffiths

Why are you interested in what The Reader Organisation does?

The Reader Organisation releases the true life changing power of the intimate act of reading. 

To hear more from Lemn Sissay and our work with young people, book your place now for The Reader Organisation’s National Conference, 17th-18th May 2012, British Library, London. Visit our website to register and for more details about the programme.

There is this ringing hum  this
bullet-borne language  ringing
shell-fall and static  this late-night
ringing of threadwork and carpet  ringing

From ‘Phantom Noise’ by Brian Turner

The Reader Organisation has teamed up with Liverpool’s exciting Writing on the Wall Festival to bring award-winning US poet Brian Turner to Liverpool at the beginning of May. Brian will read on the evening of Wednesday 2 May as part of the festival, having visited Get into Reading groups in HMP Liverpool and Mersey Care NHS Trust. The partnership with Writing on the Wall allows both the festival and TRO to reach audiences they might not otherwise interact with by showcasing the work of an excellent contemporary poet.  The audiences in HMP Liverpool and Mersey Care will have the opportunity to read Brian’s work in advance of his visit, which should make his visit all the more enjoyable and stimulating.

Brian Turner was born in California and joined the US Army in 1998, serving in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Iraq. His collections – Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise (which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize in 2010) — searingly describe his experiences and those of the people around him. His poem “The Hurt Locker” was used as the title for Kathryn Bigelow’s film, for which she won the Oscar for Best Director in 2009, the first woman to do so.

Open the hurt locker
and see what there is of knives
and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn
How rough men come hunting for souls

Online ticket sales for Brian Turner’s appearance at the War Tour event at the Casa, Hope Street, 7.30pm on 2 May and further details about the festival can be found on the Writing on the Wall Festival website; for phone/in person bookings, please contact The Unity Theatre, 1 Hope Place, L1 9BG/ph: 0844 873 2888.

Keep an eye on our blog for further information about Brian’s visit to Liverpool Get Into Reading and some words from the man himself.

Throughout April, anyone can submit a line to the poem which starts with the lines ‘Tell me what you’re thinking, tell me what you miss/Tell me what you’re dreaming, tell me what you wish’. The result will be a poem that represents and unites a diverse global literary community, speaking for children across the world who want to belong to the world of words and reading.

To add a line to the poem, visit the LitWorld website - and go here to read the poem so far.

Over the past century life expectancy has dramatically increased, leading to a growing ageing population worldwide who face a number of distinct health challenges. The main issues for affecting older people’s health in all income groups over the world are noncommunicable diseases, which include heart disease, stroke and dementia – in 2010, there were 35.6 million people living with dementia globally and numbers are expected to double over the space of the next 20 years. Longer life expectancy also affects social structures and relationships and the need to increase participation in ‘age-friendly’ social environments has been identified by WHO as key for fostering good mental health and wellbeing amongst older people.

The Reader Organisation recognises the specific issues that affect the health of older people, and our important ongoing work with older people is helping to ensure that their levels of health, wellbeing and social participation are significantly improved as a result of regular shared reading. Our recent evaluation results for our Bupa Reader-in-Residence Pilot Project speak for themselves, but speaking volumes are the stories that come straight from the older people we work with.

TRO’s work with older people has also recently been highlighted by Living With Dementia, the monthly members magazine of the Alzheimer’s Society. Their March issue featured an article entitled ‘Reading for Pleasure’,  detailing the benefits of Get Into Reading in care home settings.

We’re spreading the benefits of shared reading even further amongst older people with the launch of our Merseyside Volunteer Reader Scheme, funded by the Big Lottery. Volunteers taking part in the project will be trained to take Get Into Reading to older people in care homes across Merseyside. We’re currently looking for volunteers in Wirral who may be experiencing mental ill health or unemployment to take part in the scheme as well as care homes in Wirral who want to run a volunteer-led reading group. For more information please visit our website or e-mail christinejohnson@thereader.org.uk

And because not only is today World Health Day, but also William Wordsworth’s 242nd birthday, what better way to celebrate than with a rather appropriate poem from the man himself…

Such Age, How Beautiful!

Such age, how beautiful! O Lady bright,
Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined
By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind
To something purer and more exquisite
Than flesh and blood; whene’er thou meet’est my sight,
When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek,
Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white,
And head that droops because the soul is meek,
Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare;
That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb
From desolation toward the genial prime;
Or with the Moon conquering earth’s misty air,
And filling more and more with crystal light
As pensive Evening deepens into night.

A range of readings and literature themed events will be taking place at the store between 5-8.30pm, with something in store to please readers of all tastes. Local author Maureen Lee will be reading from her upcoming novel Au Revoir Liverpool, as well as answering questions and signing books; a Poetry Showcase featuring John Redmond, Clare Shaw and Deryn Rees-Jones reading some of their work; plus another of the store’s ‘Twisted Tales’ series featuring international horror legend Ramsey Campbell and Richard and Judy Book Club listed debut novelist Alison Littlewood.

For film buffs, there will also be a World Book Night  themed movie quiz, with all questions (and answers) involving books that have been adapted for the big screen.  And the best thing about it is that all the events of the night are absolutely free.

World Book Night at Waterstones: A Free Evening Celebrating the World of Books
23rd April, 5.00-8.30pm
Waterstones Liverpool One
12 College Lane
Liverpool, L1 3DL

For more information on the evening, please call Waterstones Liverpool One on 0151 709 9820 or visit the website.

Back in 1999, UNESCO designated 21st March World Poetry Day. The day is intended to be a celebration of poetry in all its forms, coming as a recoginition of  just how important it is to art and cultures across the world. It also aims to support and showcase the work of poets both old and new, promote the efforts of small poetry publishers and herald a return to the long-held tradition of reading poetry aloud – something which The Reader Organisation most definitely supports.

So to mark the day in the style that it requires, why not choose a poem and read it aloud and proud? The Reading Revolution begins with you!

If you’re not sure where to start, or have so many favourite poems that it’s hard to pick just one (we know the feeling), then why not dip into our vast archive of Featured Poems where you’re sure to find something that suits – or perhaps even come across a hidden gem that you’ve never read before.

Alternatively, if you like your poems on paper, you can get your very own yours-to-keep-forever copy of Poems To Take Home, an anthology of well-loved poetry especially chosen by Get Into Reading group members, volunteers and TRO staff, featuring plenty of wonderful words to soothe the mind and stir the soul.

And just for World Poetry Day, we’re treating you to another poem on the blog this week – a taster of Poems To Take Home (if you like what you read, you know what to do…), and a particularly good one to read aloud…

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Gerald Manley Hopkins

The actor and director David Morrissey is interviewed about being the dark and ‘locked in’ Bradley Headstone in the television adaptation of Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, a role he reprised in December for our Penny Readings here in Liverpool. He also talks about playing Macbeth in the Everyman theatre and his how his childhood love of libraries continues to this day.

 There are two unsettling new short stories by Drummond Bone (late of the University of Liverpool) and Olivia McCannon; and a rattlebug of beautiful, bite-size poems by Carolyn Waudby, Sean Elliott and Richie McCaffery. Have you ever read a poem that actually looks like a tiny little bird, hopping among the hedgerows? Mark Leech’s ‘As a Wren’ embodies this precious, tough little thing –its trilling and peeping come alive when you read this poem aloud.

As ever, tales from The Reader Organisation give much to think on: Casi Dylan on the balance and play between prose and poetry in Get Into Reading groups; Beverley Laroc and Eleanor Stanton’s discussion on reading with older people and the place of libraries in the current climate; Lynn Elsdon on harnessing technology via TRO’s first online Evening Read-In (the second, reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis, starts 8^th March); and Natalie Evans’ elegant thought-piece on reading Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and its prescience to her and, more broadly, today’s youth unemployment crisis.

And that’s not all: Monday’s Featured Poem here on the blog will be from this issue’s ‘Poet on His Work’ – the wonderful and insightful Bernard O’Donoghue.  Pop back on Monday for this tantalising taster, or, better yet, get ahead of the game and subscribe now!

We believe The Reader Organisation’s very own Patrick Fisher certainly has superstar potential, as anyone who saw his hilarious turn as MC Extraordinaire for last year’s Ha’Penny Readings in Liverpool will agree. As Reader-in-Residence for Glasgow schools, Patrick spends his days reading aloud with children across the city, bringing stories to life and capturing imaginations.

Here is Patrick’s brilliant Storytelling Superstar entry, complete with a truly impressive range of funny voices, Bird-Table Blues by Clare Bevan.

You can watch the other entries on the Storytelling Superstar YouTube channel. The competition closed on Sunday and the winner will be announced on World Book Day itself, 1^st March.

Watch this space!

I love the last two verses of Cecil Day Lewis’s Walking Away, a poem which captures the powerful memory of watching his son Sean on his first day at school. Every time I read the last lines, it never ceases to send a dart through my heart as I’ve lived through similar “small scorching ordeals” in which you had to allow a child the freedom to make their own way. “And love is proved in the letting go” could equally apply to an adult relationship. This poem has gripped every group I’ve ever shared it with, and provoked strong childhood memories.

Caroline Adams, Project Worker, Get Into Reading South West

‘With her thought of Vronsky was mingled some uneasiness, though he was an extremely well-bred and quiet-mannered man; a sense of something false, not in him, for he was very simple and kindly, but in herself; whereas in relation to Levin she felt herself quite simple and clear. on the other hand when she pictured to herself a future with Vronsky a brilliant vision of happiness rose up before her while a future with Levin appeared wrapped in mist.’ – Anna Karenina (Vintage, p. 55)

It was reading these lines that made me realise firstly, that Anna Karenina was no ordinary book for me, and also that Tolstoy would be exploring how his characters could understand, or rather feel, what is the right (‘simple and clear’) way and the wrong (‘false’) way for them to live their lives. Of course, that’s never going to be easy or straightforward, not for any of us…

Jennifer Tomkins, Communications Manager

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

A line, or rather a verse, that makes me fall in love time and again is in Yeats’ When You Are Old. The whole thing is wonderful, but for me it’s the second verse, and the mention of that ‘pilgrim soul’. Even for the mention of those ‘sorrows’ I don’t find the experience of reading the poem all that sorrowful. (‘A little sad’, yes, but perhaps loving a sorrow is really to love?) For me, it’s so moving an expression of love because the person who can see a driving, ‘pilgrim’ force in another is acknowledging the distances between us and the people we love as much as the intimacies. Changes will happen as we get older, lovers will separate through one means or another, but this poem is a place where these changes can themselves be transformed, for a moment at least, by our dreams, by the act of reading, by a cosmic imagination that moves us from those ‘glowing bars’ to ‘a crowd of stars.’ I wish this poem for myself when I am old.

Casi Dylan, Training Manager

“Under a persistent drizzle, you swear in all seriousness that it’s not raining. Wearers of glasses wipe the rain off them twenty times a day without thinking, get used to walking behind a constellation of droplets that diffract and break up the landscape, creating a gigantic kaleidoscope in which, unable to take bearings, they let themselves be guided my memory. But at nightfall, when a gentle rain descends on the town and the neon signs come on, inscribing their luminous calligraphy on the blue-black night, those little dancing stars that glitter before your eyes, those blue, red, green and yellow sparks that splatter your glasses, suggest the son et lumiére at Versailles. And how dull the original seems by comparison when you take off your glasses.”

From Fields of Glory by Jean Rouaud (translated from the French by Ralph Manheim; Harvill, 1992).

This book was lent to me by a dear friend with a fondness for novels about the World Wars. I took it out of politeness and mild interest and will be ever grateful that he foisted it upon me. The oblique opening sentence of the novel — “So it was simply that these things always run in series, in dreary compliance with a system whose secret workings we were now suddenly discovering. An open secret to be sure, from the very start…” gives way immediately to rich quotidian detail of family life in a small village in France’s Lower Loire. I was immediately hooked by the beautiful imagery and quiet humour of the novel, but it was in the 2nd chapter, a meditation on the Atlantic rain, that I fell in love with this book. Coming from the west coast of Ireland, I felt I had finally encountered a writer who could articulate the true complexity of my native climate, its pervasive power over the topography and citizens, its dismalness and its beauty.

Maura Kennedy, Events and Publications Manager

“At night, you can watch the sky, those strange galaxies
like so many cracks in the ceiling spilling secrets
from the flat above. You can breathe. You can dream.”

I’m totally in love with the poem Up on the Roof by Maura Dooley. I came across it in a collection called 101 Happy Poems, edited by Wendy Cope, and it celebrates that sense of freedom that I’ve always felt when I’m alone and high above the world, escaping for a while. It’s hard to choose just a few lines, but these ones capture some of that feeling.

Penny Markell, Project Manager, Get Into Reading London