Well, there's nothing like a reading of The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator to warm the cheeks and the atmosphere in a room full of strangers!

Last Tuesday afternoon found me at 49 Grand Parade, just north of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, in a second-storey room looking out across the lawns at the pseudo-Elizabethan geometry of The King and Queen. Clare Pollard was reading Anne Sexton's poem to give us a way in to the subject of confessional poetry - not only a surprise but an odd coincidence, as we'd just been studying it in the Poetry Seminar.

Clare challenged each of us all to lie blatantly to the others without being found out, and took us to our lowest moment to dig for imagery. We mined our humiliations for poetic material, laughed and gasped and laughed some more. We even wrote some poetry. It was brilliant.

So if any of you are hesitating about trying a workshop at The South, dust off your pens and notepads and book one. The visiting poet usually gives a reading in the evening - there's an open mic too, but unfortunately I couldn't make that. Next time maybe.

They have lots of different courses including novel-writing - more info at:

THE SOUTH

Maybe I'll see you there.

Nell.