I’ve always liked that line from Robert Frost’s ‘The Death of the Hired Man’. The Poem-a-Thon in Brighton on Sunday 11 December is raising funds for the Refugee Council which does excellent work helping refugees and asylum seekers – who have suffered terrible losses – find the openings they need in order to feel at home…
Category: News
Water, water, everywhere
Right now I am at the end of a particular kind of tether – the house rental tether. Last year we decided to sell our home of seventeen years in order to downsize. Having tried to buy various houses, each of which fell through for a different reason, and not wanting to lose our buyer,…
StAnza 2016 – a festive table
What a privilege to be invited to take part in StAnza 2016, the 19th annual poetry festival in St Andrews. Heartfelt thanks to Eleanor Livingstone and to all the members of the team who every year organise and programme this outstanding festival. StAnza extends such a warm welcome to everyone who attends – it really…
Take Me With You: the Museum of Friendship, Remembrance and Loss
Take Me With You: the Museum of Friendship, Remembrance and Loss 6.00-8.30 pm, Thursday 18 February 2016 at the Chowen Lecture Theatre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer Campus BN1 9PX Museum open from 6.00 pm Clare Best and Tim Andrews in conversation (+q&a) 6.30-7.30 pm Drinks reception from 7.30 pm Museum open until 8.30 pm…
The publication of CELL
Yesterday, Michaela Ridgway and I took delivery of CELL, the not-quite-pamphlet which gives embodiment to my poem in twelve sections with art by Michaela. The object has been designed by Katy Mawhood – it’s a printed and folded sheet with only some of the folds cut, so that it can be handled and read in…
Making ‘Vacant Possession’ – a site-specific performance to say goodbye to a house (written by Sara Clifford and Clare Best, directed by Nicola Blackwell)
Sometimes good things come out of disappointments. Sara and I had planned a Writers in Residence event at the University of Brighton for late April, themed around collaboration and site-specific work. Speakers and space were booked, but the date was too close to exams, and on the night we found ourselves in a small circle…
Putting up Springlines at Glyndebourne
Yesterday was a long day – but thank goodness the rain more or less held off and so we could get the paintings (some of them are huge) and all the text panels into the Stalls Gallery without too much trouble. Hanging the larger paintings proved quite a challenge for Steve, partly because he had to be…
Springlines exhibition at Glyndebourne from 8 July to 30 August
Mary Anne and I are delighted to announce an exhibition in the Stalls Gallery at Glyndebourne from 8 July until the end of the season on 30 August. We’re going to show work from all kinds of watery sites we’ve visited over the past year or two, and there’ll also be a specifically Glyndebourne focus….
Beyond comfort
I spent Saturday drawing. The idea of drawing holds cosy memories of the art room at school where I loved going but felt guilty because I should have been studying. So why was I outside my comfort zone on Saturday? Partly because I hadn’t put pencil to paper in decades (other than to write) but…
Touching the Core
‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’ Gospel of St Thomas I thoroughly enjoyed the Self-portrait without Breasts event at Kings College London on February 24th. A huge…
Clare Best 