May 15, 2011 10.38 am This story is over 153 months old

County poets meet for book festival

Local poetry: Lincolnshire-based poets meet in Lincoln for Book Festival and talk about their inspiration.

Lincolnshire poets celebrated the eighth Lincoln Book Festival by holding a reading at Pimento Cafe on Saturday afternoon.

Paul Sutherland, who organised the local poets meeting, is a Canadian-born poet who arrived in the UK in 1973.

Inspiration for writing poetry for Sutherland comes randomly, he said: “It was just last week whilst I was sat in the garden and I looked at some flowers and then I thought about this (the reading) event, it flows and it’s like the birth of a child with how it creates so many feelings and emotions.

“In another way it’s like turning over a stone and finding something which inspires you. Though what inspired to become a poet was my grandfather. He used to read poetry to me as a child.

“I think I always knew I was going to be a poet. At the age of the 17 I decided I had to stop playing football and go into my attic starting writing poetry.”

Sutherland said his poetry is easy to write down, though it took him many years to refine it: “I tend to wonder if I should make it fictional.”

“I try to get my poems published though it can be quite selective, though I consider readings a form of publishing as well. Though I feel when you go out to get your work published your dealing with over people’s agendas.”

Jenny Clarkson is another Lincolnshire poet who is renowned for her poetry and short stories, also present at the Saturday reading.

“Most of my poems are inspired by things that are in my life. For example like sound or seeing objects. I feel like they’re things to say about everyday and it needs to be made into art. I’m not sure about this, but in my opinion artists are born.

“I wouldn’t say a lot of my inspiration comes from Lincoln, well not as a town. It mostly comes from the streets, my house and people generally.”