Tony Kellman in Leeds

We had the pleasure of having Tony Kellman in Leeds last week. After a brief reading tour that took in the universities of Birmingham and Warwick, Tony came to Leeds to renew an acquaintance with our Northern grit, twelve years after his last visit. This previous visit was recalled in a couple of poems in his 2000 collection Wings of a Stranger, ‘Roofs of Yorkshire’ where the order of the villages to the north of Leeds inspire the wish ‘to compose a verse so tightly packed/ so naturally united’ and ‘Downtown Leeds’, which begins ‘We leave working class King’s Avenue,/ with its back to back terraced housing…’. It was diverting to see the HQ of Peepal Tree (we occupy an elongated brick building, somewhat like a narrow chapel) memorialised in a poem. It somehow gives us a strange sense of our reality!

But this time, Tony was here to read from his new major work, fourteen years in the making, his epic poem of Barbados, Limestone. He read at Borders in Leeds, an event which, by dint of some rapid Facebook advertising, was pleasingly well attended. Much to Borders’ surprise (apparently such sales are very rare), a respectable number of books were sold. Though the reading lasted a good deal longer than average sessions, there was no drifting away, and afterwards a Q & A went on well into the night. Thanks to Wes Brown at Borders for setting this up. Maybe, (but probably not) Borders might be encouraged to widen their poetry stock. The only Caribbean collection on the shelves was a copy of Walcott’s The Prodigal (though there was plenty of Seamus Heaney and Pam Ayres).

At the weekend Tony did a masterclass for the Inscribe writers development group on working with song rhythms in poetry (Limestone is based around the rhythms of Barbadian tuk songs).

So, good to see an old friend sporting natty new baby-dreads. His only complaint was that we couldn’t find him any Yorkshire pudding, though Leeds’ vastly improved shopping centre found favour, and provided a neat pair of boots.

Click here for more on Limestone and to order