“This is like a mini poetry festival,” said one enthusiastic poet at Coffee-House Poetry at London’s Troubadour on Monday night. You could see her point.

There were seven poets, each with at least one collection, often more, to their name; a celebrity name, Louis de Bernières, better known as author of the huge-selling novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin; and even a Paul Simon song just before the break to remind us of the Troubadour’s 1960s folk hero roots, and its unique atmosphere.  

Louis de Bernières published his first collection of poetry last year, although the 59-year-old, bestselling novelist told the Troubadour audience that he had been writing verse since the age of 12. The collection, Imagining Alexandria: Poems in Memory of Constantinos Cavafis, is intended as his tribute to Cavafy, the renowned Greek poet who lived in Egypt, and who, De Bernieres said, often used to write poems “in the form of advice”. De Bernières, whose introductions to his poems were often disarmingly honest – “I’ve been reading from the book since last August, and I’m beginning to get a bit fed up with it” – has his own advice to someone facing death in ‘When The Time Comes’: “Do not be bitter, no world lasts for ever.”

He read poems about one-night stands, “crammed into seven hours enough for seven years”, and about a short-lived affair conducted in a hotel: “I’ve just been back, and they’ve boarded it up.” He introduced a poem about the joy of spending time with his children, ‘Empty Vessel’, with the words: “Whenever I try introspection, I see absolutely bugger all … I don’t think there’s anyone in here at all.” And there was a poem, ‘The Old Man’, that he recited from memory, because it was both unpublished and unwritten: “He’s glad they are gone, those far-off, passionate days.”

Before De Bernières, whose talents include playing the flute, mandolin, clarinet and guitar, there were other musical notes. Barbara Marsh was born in Rhode Island, performs in a music duo, and her first poetry collection was published by Eyewear last year. Her first poem at the Troubadour referenced Springsteen and Thunder Road in paying wry tribute to a bar’s “slick-haired, stubble-jawed heartthrobs”. Jennifer Wong, from Hong Kong, read poems about beauty contests in the former colony, embroidering Chinese pin cushions, old Beijing, and, most strikingly, about the “ugly history” and crushed bones of her grandmother’s bound feet. Ian House’s poem about the Russian satirist and short story writer Gogol referred to the legend that he had been buried alive, but also to the size of his nose, “that magnificent hooter … irrepressible and promiscuous”. Lydia Macpherson, whose Love Me Do collection was winner of the 2013 Crawshaw prize, and has just been published by Salt, grew up in the Pennines during the Yorkshire Ripper years - “he was on the loose at the same time as I was”. Her poem, ‘Jack’, refers to the hoaxer with the north-east accent who put West Yorkshire detectives off the scent, amid an atmosphere of suspicion and recrimination overladen with dread: “In the Telegraph & Argus, blurry, worn-out, women’s faces.”

Jackie Wills’ fifth collection is Women’s Head as Jug. She read a poem about her brother’s death an air crash that had taken her 10 years to write. Victoria Field’s reading included the title poem of her latest collection, Lost Boys; Alyson Hallett has lived and worked in Turkey, and read a poem about the sights and “oversights” of Istanbul: “The rubbish in the water … and the smile on the old man’s face.”  

Winding up the first half, singer and guitarist Henry Fajemirokun gave an atmospheric rendition of the Simon & Garfunkel song ‘Bookends’, to emphasise the musical traditions of the Troubadour’s basement. Paul Simon lived across the road from the Troubadour for a while during the 1960s. In a fortnight’s time, Coffee-House Poetry’s tireless host Anne-Marie Fyfe has lined up a reading and interview with Paul Muldoon. It’s likely to be standing room only.

Greg Freeman

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