A celebration of Arundel in verse in new anthology

Cherrie Taylor from Worthing and Geoffrey Winch from Felpham combine for the volume entitled Coffee at Cockburn’s, published by FELWORTHBOOKS at £8.50. The book is for sale at Cockburn’s Tearooms in Arundel and in the Arundel Museum shop. Copies can also be bought directly from Cherrie at [email protected]. The book includes individual poems, some having an Arundel focus plus collaborative work.

On Monday, September 11 at 7.30pm they are having the official launch at Arts Junction, The Victoria Institute, Tarrant Street Arundel. Tickets available on www.thevictoriainstitute.com/arts-junction or on the door.

Cherrie said: “This is a book for all who love Sussex as well as all who love collaborative writing, particularly within Japanese short-form poetry. The poems are grounded in the personal and every day. but also provide the sense of a huge journey across time, culture and place. It is a highly original and varied collection – ancient in inspiration and yet also immediate, contemporary. We’ve worked closely on responsive poems over the last three years – mainly Tanka and Rengay. Tanka are based on ancient Japanese waka, normally rendered in five brief lines. containing an observation and reaction to it. A rengay is derived from ancient Japanese renga. We often met at a favourite tearoom, Cockburn’s in Arundel, to discuss the poems we had been compiling from 2018-9 prior to lockdown. Things were on hold until we could meet up again during 2021. We continued to see each other at poetry groups but the seed of the idea to have our poems together in one collection grew. Early in 2023 we were ready!

“Many of the poems have focus on Arundel and Sussex. Some were written about the tearoom and one in particular about a hidden lane – Mincing Lane. This was once on the site of the tearoom and has recently been rediscovered. We decided to name the book Coffee at Cockburn’s. The tearoom is delighted!”

Cherrie’s debut collection Stepping on Shadows was published in 2021. Cherrie lives in Worthing, and the coast and seashore are important parts of her life. She was told that some of her first words were written in the sand. She has enjoyed writing stories and poetry since childhood. In 2012 she studied creative writing with the Open University. She has won prizes for her poetry and short stories and her work has been published in magazines and anthologies.

Geoffrey lives in Felpham, and since retiring there from the South Midlands in 2001, he has been an active member of several poetry groups in county. For more than three decades his poetry has appeared regularly in journals and anthologies in the UK, US and online. His previous poetry collections include The Morning Light of Dusk (Feather Books, 2004).