2015 is mainly going to be about touring my one-woman show Ovid’s Heroines with Jaybird Live Literature. Here are some images by photographer Marcos Avlonitis from rehearsals just before Christmas, which were very intense but exciting too. We created the whole show in five days, and at one point I almost started to panic at having to be so many characters, and could hardly remember if I was meant to be fierce, queenly, twitchy or a tart! So I’ve still got a lot to practice, but we got the emotional arc of it nailed by the end, and I’m really thrilled with how it’s going to look. Also the soundtrack rocks. 
With the elections getting nearer (and my anger levels mounting) it’s also going to be a year of politics, and Radio 4 asked me to contribute to its Broadcasting House news-show this weekend, with a poem about campaigning, inspired by the Governor of New York in the 80s, who said that you should “campaign in poetry, govern in prose”. Mine is about the way politicians pretend to be talking ‘common sense’ when they’re actually making things up. Also, as there’s something so Victorian about our current Tory government, the poetry of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. It’s called ‘Common Nonsense’ (though the title sadly got edited out of the show), and is about 54 minutes in.
TS Eliot awards tonight! I’m so excited to be going to the ceremony, I am having my hair cut specially.
Oh, and my poem ‘Boys‘ was published in the Morning Star if you haven’t seen it. Good year so far.
clarepollard 