Maya Angelou and me: The caged bird still sings.

Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 - May 28, 2014)

In my television days, I worked on a series of films called God Bless America (ITV) that asked distinguished American writers to make filmed essays about their native cities. I had hoped to make one of these programmes with the great Maya Angelou, who died yesterday, but, sadly that didn't happen. I had written to her and expected an answer, possibly a no, from her agent but on a Sunday night I had just gone to bed with a book when the telephone rang next to the bed. I picked up the phone slightly sleepily and a voice said: "Hello, is that Mr Bell? This is Doctor Angelou." The voice was female, richly American and the timbre was that distinct mixture of humour and dignity that was so characteristic of Maya Angelou. It was a great privilege not just to have spoken to her but to have had that long, nearly half an hour, detailed and totally unexpected telephone call out of the night air from across the Atlantic. I am still sad that our mutual schedules meant that a fascinating film was never made but I shall remember our telephone meeting with pride. She was a great human being and a powerful poet.


I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS


The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Maya Angelou

Pathé Films upload Stephen Dearsley's Brighton

Pathé Films have released their archive for us all to enjoy on-line. How great is that! I've always been fascinated by old films of everyday life so I was excited to see the footage of my old stamping ground of Brighton seafront shot during the 1970s.


For fans of my novel Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love (well there myst be some, somewhere!) many of the book's locations in their original clothes can be observed as the camera rolls by nonchalantly recording everything without prejudice. Take a look - it's a kind of journey.

Four have fun in Greenwich - the Ward Wood Writers hit the road.

It was a full house at the very welcoming Greenwich gallery, Made In Greenwich yesterday when I and three of my Ward Wood Publishing colleagues gave our first collective reading together. Like a band on the road, the four of us had a great time and have vowed to do this again in the spirit of The Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night.

An idea dreamed up months ago in a conversation at London's Poetry Café finally came to its very enjoyable conclusion last night in front of a large and encouragingly receptive audience (many of them were poets from the Greenwich area) hosted by the wonderfully informal and enthusiastic Irena Hill, co-owner of the gallery who stepped in at the last minute to replace our publisher, Adele Ward, who had become a victim of the London Underground strike. Thanks, Irena, you were great.

First up was Peter Phillips who fully engaged the audience right from the start with his wryly humourous and yet passionate readings from his two Ward Wood poetry collections, No School Tie and Oscar And I.

The No School Tie poems provide a vivid poet's impression  of a boarding school childhood as well life as a writer,  a husband and a grandfather. Then Oscar And I, the confessions of a fictional minor poet George Meadows who experiences all the fragile hopes and stoically received disappointments of any writer's life but with irony and honesty and humour. If you have read the poems but not heard Peter read them then you've missed a treat. Once heard, his voice always sounds in my head when returning to these delightful collections.

Next was American-born but London-based novelist and poet, Sue Guiney who is working on a series of novels set in Cambodia where she has founded a writing workshop for street children in Siem Reap and now spends about two months each year teaching there.  Her most recent novel, Out of the Ruins, the second in her Cambodia series, was published by Ward Wood in January. 

Sue read from Out Of The Ruins continuing her exploration of what happens when East meets West, in this case when two European doctors set up women's clinic in Cambodian town of Siem Reap with the passionate assistance of a young Khmer nurse. Sue read this and some of her new Cambodian poems with the real passion and commitment she feels for this much put-upon country. She also read from her Ward Wood poetry collection, Her Life Collected, my latest "loo read" - a collection of wonderfully direct and personal poems that are my current inspiration.

Then there was Joe Stein, Ward Wood's impressive crime writer, who is much more than that. He is a terrific writer who draws on, amongst other things, his life as an amateur boxer and professional bodyguard. His main character, Garron, is a body-guard with a philosophical soul and an ever-questioning attitude that gives the Garron books their special quality - I would say literary quality if that didn't sound dull which the books most certainly aren't.

Joe read from his latest Ward Wood novel, the third in the series, That Twisted Thing Called Truth and then, a special treat for people like me, hooked on what is going to happen next with the intriguing existentialist Garron, Joe read from his new novel, Through Another Night due to be released in October. I can't wait.

And then there was me, the newest of all the Ward Wood novelists. I read some extracts from my book Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love enjoying the contrast between my hapless young fogey character Stephen and Joe's much more muscular Garron. Afterwards, Joe and I pondered what it would be like if the two of them met. As Made In Greenwich usually hosts poetry events, I read part of my Fibonacci poetry sequence, Brief Encounters, a work still in-progress, but one day, I hope, a collection in the spirit of the Romantic song cycles by two of my heroes, that I used to sing as a young music student, Schubert's Winterreise and Schumann's Dichterliebe.

Peter, Sue, Joe and I are enthusiastic about doing this again. Our work is so contrasted that collectively the readings really do add up to something greater than it's individual parts. More important than that though, it was fun.