The Gloucestershire Poetry Society presents a special edition of our online poetry event, 'Crafty Crows', hosted by Josephine & Peter Lay , on Wednesday 7th December 2022 from 7.00pm until 10.00pm, 'THE TRAWLER 2022 Special' featuring Josephine Lay & Raine Geoghegan. (Technical stuff by Jason Conway).
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Just a small amount of open-mic tonight...
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Please be aware that Crafty Crows is recorded, and subsequently posted via youtube...
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Josephine Lay is a poet and writer living near Gloucester. She turned to literature late in life, and studied for a BA and an MA in Creative English at Bath Spa University in her early fifties.

Josephine has been Dir. of Ops. for The Gloucestershire Poetry Society over the last three years and hosts ‘Crafty Crows’; a monthly online poetry event. She has read at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, The Gloucester Poetry Festival, and at many events across the South West of England and the Midlands.

Josephine has published three collections of poetry: Inside Reality (2018), Unravelling (2019) and A Quietus (2021) all published by Black Eyes Publishing UK. She’s had poems published in several magazines, including; Ink, Sweat and Tears; Black Bough Poetry & The Steel Jackdaw; and in various Poetry Anthologies.

Website: blackeyespublishinguk.co.uk/josephine-lay-poet
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Raine Geoghegan, M.A. is a Welsh born Gypsy poet, writer & playwright living in the UK. She is a Forward prize, twice Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.

Her work has been published internationally both online and in print. Her three pamphlets are published with Hedgehog Press. Her essay ‘It’s Hopping Time’ is published in the anthology ‘Gifts of Gravity & Light’ with Hodder & Stoughton.

She has performed at Ledbury Poetry Festival; Chichester Festival; Over the Edge in Galway & more.

Her first full collection, ‘The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh’ is published with Salmon Poetry Press.

She teaches ‘Performance Skills’ and has extensive experience in theatre and dance.

Website: rainegeoghegan.co.uk

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Poems were selected (trawled) for The Trawler 2022, from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society (GPS) group Facebook page. The first GPS anthology, The Trawler 2020 and 2021, were a great success; enabling promising poets to publish their work for the first time. So, we repeated the process, and here are a further one hundred and sixteen poems (posted between June 2021 and May 2022) by fifty-two different poets. As before, some of the poems are rough diamonds, in need of some polishing but they are of sufficient worth to be included within these pages. Many of the poems are first drafts, but each poem has an element: a style, a voice; or some content or passion that caught us as we read.

We hope you’ll enjoy these poems which were penned and posted with an enthusiasm for the written word. These poets come from all parts of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, from France, Germany and the Netherlands, and some from as far away as the United States, Australia, India, Togo (West Africa) and the Caribbean.