Wagner birthday artefacts

Celebrating Wagner's significant birthday with knitting, collage, and letterpress. Photographed in front of my beloved Adana 8x5 letterpress machine you can see Brunhilde looking for a horse, Lohengrin looking for suitable transport, and the Flying Dutchman looking for love. The birthday cards have music from Lohengrin, birthday gift wrap and a letterpress printed name.

 I am taking them and lots of others to the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, 25th and 26th May. www.diffusionfestival.org

Here are the cards, with Brunhilde, who as you can see, has been looking in the Horse and Hound magazine for a new steed.

Knitted Literary Cohort ready for Diffusion Fair

Here are a few of the cohort of Literary and Operatic finger puppet collage cards, ready to travel from Hay on Wye to the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff.

Celebrating some of the great characters and stories of opera and literature, the idea for them came to me in a vision as I awoke at the end of Act 2 of a concert performance of Parsifal.

The cards have knitted finger puppets, text either handwritten or typed on my ancient typewriter, and collage. Here are King Lear and his Fool,

and Caliban and Ariel,

My current favourite is Don Giovanni, who you can see with the Commendatore on the bottom left of the first photograph.

I am really looking forward to bringing the cohort to Diffusion at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff at the weekend, 25th and 26th May.
www.diffusionfestival.org

Be careful. I think the puppets come alive at night.

Blue Moon poetry ready for Diffusion Publishing Fair

I have just finished making poetry seed packets, filled with blue moon poetry, ready for the fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing weekend.

Here's a poem naming each moon;

12 regular moons & one extra
old moon snow moon
crow moon

grass moon planting moon
rose moon

hay moon green corn moon
harvest moon

hunter's moon frosty moon
long night moon

blue moon

Occasionally there are two full moons in a calendar month. The second one is known as a blue moon, although it's not actually blue. I like to think that there are changes and shifts under a blue moon. And where better for the changes to start than in a dusty old map shop, a place that holds so many directions and definitions.

I am bringing the collection to the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, on 25th and 26th May. www.diffusionfestival.org

Here are future blue moons, so you can be prepared; July 2015, January & March 2018, October 2020. Be careful not to lose your way.

planting poetry ready for Diffusion publishing fair

Poetry to plant in your imagination.

I've never really liked the idea of poetry trapped on pages in a certain order, so I came up with poetry seed packets. The poems are printed on separate sheets, contained in a seed packet.

 Free range, if you like!


All handmade by me. That's what I am mostly doing this week, preparing for the Diffusion Festival Publishing weekend at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff on 25th and 26th May.

www.diffusionfestival.org

haiku. ludwig van. clockwork orange

ludwig van
the glorious Ninth -
gorgeosity made flesh
O my brothers, O!



Celebrating Beethoven, and Clockwork Orange,
with letterpress and a page from the book.

I am making a series of cards of composers names, to take to the fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff on 25th and 26th May.
www.diffusionfestival.org

All the names have to be divisible by three, because I think that's the best look from my beautiful wooden letterpress letters.  Mozart, Brahms, Wagner and Schubert to follow.

floral ampersand. haiku.

Ampersands keep the seasons flowing. Here's my haiku;

open ended
seasons passing &
leaf & bloom & fruit & seed
& seasons passing

I have been drawing aceo floral ampersand cards to take to the fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff on 25th & 26th May.
www.diffusionfestival.org

I am really enjoying my pointing finger pen nib. 

haiku. linocut. then & now

 then & now
reaching out for - for -
plodding through present moments,
now turning to then



  My ampersand obsession continues to grow. Here is a linocut, which, with lots of its friends, I will be taking to the Fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff on 25 & 26th May.
http://www.diffusionfestival.org/

Very exciting.
I am particularly fond of the headscarf.

Cardiff Children's LitFest. Photos. Poetry.

Here are some photos of my poetry performance in Cardiff Central Library as part of the Children's LitFest.

I am performing Spiky Hedgehog, which is one of my oldest and most favourite poems, which has actions for the children to join in with, and is always hugely noisy and enjoyable.

 This photo I really like!

At rest again.

Many thanks to Jennifer Haywood for the photos. 

www.francescakay.co.uk

Cardiff Children's LitFest. Poetry. Libraries. Fun.

After a rampaging poetry reading at Cardiff Central Library with an audience of young children, I staggered out into the fresh air with a slight headache from laughing so much,  and went to look at the children's poetry exhibition in the Old Library.

I had worked for a morning at Penyrenglyn Primary School, and some of the children's work was exhibited. It looked wonderful, enlarged from the original A4, and displayed in the beautiful exhibition space, along with lots of work from other schools, who had all had visits from writers.
We had written about Can't You Sleep Little Bear?  

It doesn't get much better than this - to perform poetry and songs to a young audience enjoying words and ideas, and then to see the results of workshop work displayed in a lovely exhibition.
All thanks to the Cardiff Children's Literature Festival. I am proud to have been part of it.
www.cardiffchildrenslitfest.com
www.francescakay.co.uk

Cardiff Children's Literature Festival event

I am delighted to be part of the Cardiff Children's Literature Festival 2013. LOTS of events, all over Cardiff. Here's the link to the Festival website
www.cardiffchildrenslitfest.com

and here's my event - it's going to be fun!

 Poems, Rhymes and Songs with Francesca Kay

Date Fri 22 March
Location Cardiff Central Library
Time 11.30 am
Age Early years
Language English
Tickets FREE
Poet Francesca Kay presents poems, rhymes and songs to listen to, join with and enjoy. Children and adults alike enjoy Francesca's enthusiasm and sense of fun as she spins words and tunes for their delight. Francesca has performed and written poetry with children in schools, libraries, gardens, woodlands, museums and art galleries.
 
www.francescakay.co.uk