Trish Harewood – CB1 Poetry

Welcome to CB1, Helen. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Thank you for welcoming me to the committee, Trish, I am in good company with yourself, Angus Allman and Lindsay Fursland. I am retired but I have not slowed down. I manage the infamous WhatsApp group for CB1 Poetry but anyone who runs poetry events in Cambridge, who joins the group, may share their own poetry event posts here too, which enables us to keep up to date with where poetry readings are happening and also where local poets can also read their own poems, besides CB1 Poetry.

I am based with my family near Cambridge.

Since February 2024, I have been focussing on a bilingual project as English co-translator of Chinese poet Ma Yongbo 马永波, who is also my official Chinese translator and my best friend. Ma Yongbo is a Chinese poet, translator, editor, and scholar of postmodern poetry. He has authored or translated more than seventy published books. He is a professor in the Faculty of Arts and Literature at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. His translations from English include works by John Ashbery, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Herman Melville, May Sarton, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and many others. There is a more in-depth detail about Ma Yongbo on my website www.helenpletts.com

We co-create ‘The Ma Yongbo Poetry Road Trip – Summer Tour 2025’ for International Times ma yongbo and helen pletts | Search Results | IT Our first bilingual poetry book entitled ‘Night Shining-White’, is due out in 2026 from Open Shutter Press, Edited by Pete Taylor.

I learn Mandarin with my Tutor Ma Yongping through Cambridge U3A.

I have the company of Sasha, a rescue dog from the Ukraine and Sox a rescue cat from the UK streets.

Besides Chinese, my poetry has also been translated into Bangla, Greek, Vietnamese, Serbian, Korean, Arabic, Italian, Albanian, Romanian and Spanish. This short poem of mine ‘this is the violet hour’ published by International Times https://internationaltimes.it/this-is-the-violet-hour这是紫罗兰时刻/ can also be read in most of these languages, here it is in English and Chinese:

this is the violet hour

the night-ribbon unravelling, stars spilling
everywhere, shoulders closer than ever.
Roses unfurl in the night air, moths dress
their petals with softness and body fur.
We are quiet signals tonight, only nature
speaks for us, in a voice of wonder. We sleep
and the darkness governs us. The moths are
happiest, when they are speaking to the roses

By Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨

Translated by Ma Yongbo ⻢永波译 2024

这是紫罗兰时刻this is the violet hour⻢永波译

夜的绶带展开，群星洒落
全地，肩膀与肩膀靠得更近。
玫瑰在夜⽓中舒展，⻜蛾
⽤柔软和绒⽑装扮它们的花瓣。
今夜，我们是安静的信号，只有⾃然
为我们说话，⽤奇迹的声⾳。我们⼊睡
⿊暗统治着我们。⻜蛾何其
幸福，当它们向着玫瑰倾诉

My poetry has five shortlistings for the Bridport Poetry Prize (2018, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), two longlistings for The Rialto Nature & Place Prize (2018, 2022), a longlisting for the Ginkgo Prize (2019), a longlisting for the National Poetry Competition (2022), 2nd Prize in the Plaza Prose Poetry Competition (2022-23), and a shortlisting for the Plaza Prose Poetry Competition (2023-24).

My three poetry collections include the illustrated ‘your eye protects the soft-toed snow drop’, with Romit Berger (2022, ISBN 978-9-657-68177-0, Gama Poetry) and two early collections ‘Bottle bank’ (2008 ISBN 978-1-84923-119-0), and ‘For the chiding dove’ (2009, ISBN 978-1-84923-485-6) published by YWO/Legend Press with Arts Council support.

My prizewinning prose poetry features in The Plaza Prizes anthologies, and my eco-poetry appears in anthologies from Worple Press, Open Shutter Press, Fly on the Wall Press. Other poetry of mine appears in international poetry anthologies published in Italian and Albanian.

My work is widely published in international journals such as International Times, Vox Populi, Ink Sweat and Tears, Aesthetica, Orbis, The Mackinaw, The Ekphrastic Review, Cambridge Poetry, The Fenland Reed, Poetry on the Lake, Sindh Courier, European Poetry, Verse Virtual, Magique Publishing, Primelore, Deshusa, Verseum Literary, Stigmalogou.gr, Area Felix, www.cnpnews.co.kr, Masticadoresusa, The Journal of Transnational Literature, The Wordsmith Literary E-Magazine, Alessandra Today Magazine, Nacional, The Daily Global Nation, Gas: Poetry, Art and Music, International Web Post, Ciceroni journal in English, Oceano News Magazine, Saturno Magazine.

I am published in Chinese translation by Ma Yongbo 马永波 —New World Poetry , Literary World, Prose Poetry, Silver, Poetry Reference, Big Dipper International Poetry Forum, Poetry Appreciation.

This is how Publisher, Kate Birch, describes my poetry : “Helen’s very personal poetry reveals her strong connection to the natural world while also laying herself open emotionally. She writes with a thoughtful, mesmerising delicacy on love and death, on joy and need, illness and exhaustion.”

“Helen Pletts poetic creation is by no means a mere “writing about nature” or “recording of emotions,” but a poetic system with inherent logic and conscious theoretical awareness. When we strip away the detailed presentation of specific poems, the uniqueness of her poetic pursuit emerges clearly: she reconstructs the perceptual relationship between humans and the world through “natural phenomenology” to dissolve the subject-object opposition between humans and nature; breaks the constraints of linear time via “cross-temporal emotional topology” to construct a folded space where memory and reality converge; and endows simple images with existential contemplation through “the philosophical transformation of everyday metaphors”. These three dimensions collectively constitute the core traits that distinguish her from traditional nature poets.” Ma Yongbo 马永波, excerpt from ‘The Luminous World of All-Embracing Oneness: Reflections of Translating Helen Pletts’ Poetry’

“The Response Poetry between Ma Yongbo and Helen Pletts “is the real international cooperation. This is not a simple translation, nor is it cultural input or output, but a mutual appreciation between poets of two different languages, because they share the same belief that poetry is a necessary means to overcome the linguistic Tower of Babel, and poetry is a rainbow between souls.” Tong Xiaofeng, Film Director and long term friend of Ma Yongbo

正如仝晓锋所言，这才是真正的国际合作。这不是简单的翻译，不是文化输出输入，而是两个不同语种诗人之间的惺惺相惜，因为他们共同的信念在于——诗歌是克服语言巴别塔的必备手段，诗歌是心灵之间的彩虹。

How long have you lived in Cambridge?

I first lived in Cambridge back in the eighties, working for the City Council and then the County Council, I moved out to Godmanchester, then to Prague and back to Cambridge in 2010.

What poem/poet/teacher first got you into poetry?

My mother introduced me to poetry, reading to me when I was a child, from ‘The Golden Treasury of Poetry’ selected by Louis Untermeyer with great children’s favourites like ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes and I have many of my early childhood poetry books still too, ‘Hailstone and Halibut Bones’ by Mary O’neill, was one of my favourites. A series of poetry books called ‘Voices’ were new inspiring collections of poetry that I enjoyed as a child, that focussed on poems written in different dialects as well. Around the age of eleven I discovered Shakespeare and Wilfred Owen. Age fifteen Keats, Hughes, Gunn and Milton. In my forties I discovered W.S. Graham and in my sixties Ma Yongbo. I wrote my first poem, at age 5, about a polar bear.

How did you find out about CB1? Tell us about your first visit and your experience of the open mic.

I began coming to CB1, often reading with my father, the poet Mike Bannister, and I remember you Trish from those days, from round about 2010, and what was nice is that you even remembered me in 2024, when I suddenly found that I had time to start attending local poetry events again ! Peter Gizzi even mentioned CB1 Poetry at one of his seminars in 2011, so word of it being a good event where students could read their poetry was circulating well. Poetry reading at the mic is always respected and everyone is quiet and listens attentively. Performing poetry is not easy as it often depends on how much energy you have on the night too, but there is help to know where to place the microphone in front of you and every effort is made to make you feel supported and confident.

And what about your writing practice? Have you tried workshops in the past? Are you regularly sending stuff out for publication, or do you prefer social media

I write most days. If I am not writing my own poetry, I am either translating poetry by Ma Yongbo, or answering interview questions about how we work together, or preparing my own poetry for publication. Ma Yongbo and I write and publish our Response Poetry especially for International Times and we have been doing this since May 2025. We also include and feature other poet/translators who translate our poetry, and we try to work with as many poets from as many countries as possible, to be a part of the transnational poetry community.

I have not had time to attend poetry workshops for years but I regularly join in with ‘Future Karaoke’, the regular new writing showcase, organised by Dr Jon Stone, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Cambridge School of Creative Industries, ARU, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT. At ‘Future Karaoke’ creative writing students together with local poets respond by writing to a given theme, and these events are lively and very enjoyable too. They are a great way to meet other local writers. I do use Facebook and Instagram, usually to announce my own publication, or publication of other poet friends and connect with other writers globally who want to work together.

I am a member of CB1 Stanza Group, run by Lindsay Fursland. Thank you Lindsay.

What are you reading at the moment?

I am trying to read ‘The Monkey King’ by Wu Cheng’en but I have not got very far into it at the moment, as I am always so busy working with Ma Yongbo. I am also very fond of reading Ancient Chinese poetry, from the Song Dynasty which is very beautiful but very difficult to translate successfully.

How do you see CB1 developing?

l’d like to echo Angus’s wishes here, back in 2023, when he was interviewed by Anne Berkeley, which was “to use CB1 as a platform, not just for growing my and other poets’ confidence in performing but also to help shine a light on local talent on social media and to encourage as many people as possible in the town to write and share their work. The plan is to have a few open-mic evenings and then bring in the occasional guest poet to do readings and talk about their work.

CB1’s got so much potential. Down the road, the group could run workshops or host events in collaboration with other art groups in Cambridge. I’m very excited to see where this goes and how much difference we can make to the community.” Because I think that he has achieved precisely that, expanding all of this good intent into his Directorship of the Cambridge Poetry Festival as well. Thank you Angus.

I hope to continue to keep local poets, and people who love listening to poetry, connected through the WhatsApp group so that people get to hear about as many poetry events in Cambridge as possible. We have had some tremendous support continuously from Rob Jelly at the BBC, who has often given CB1 Poetry a shout out on his weekly radio show. Thank you Rob Jelly.

Cambridge is thriving with poetry events at the moment and we all support each other: Mill Road Poetry, Word Salad run by Colliding Lines, poetry readings at our Universities, including open mics in various pubs both in and just outside the city, these are all happening regularly besides the ‘Future Karaoke’ events that I have previously mentioned. Come and connect with us, read your poetry, or just listen, you are so welcome, and we can help to keep you up to date with other local poetry events too.

Long time committee member and open-mic staple Trish Harewood writes about her life, how she came to poetry, and CB1’s history.

When I first found CB1 through the Cambridge Poetry Festival at The Boat House in the late 90s, I never imagined that I would become a part of the open mic poetry scene for the next 2 decades, going on for 3. Yes, I was shy in conversation, and still am – swamped in a group, in fact – but I found joy in reading poems that had been hidden in notebooks for years. Suddenly, they had an audience!
They were well-received for the most part. I began to take them and writing others, more seriously.
Hearing other people’s poems also opened up a wealth of appreciation in me for the broad umbrella which is poetry in the late 20th and now 21st Century.

I was first introduced to 20th Century poets, particularly Eliot & Auden, by my English O Level Teacher, Miss Pearce, at Latymer in Edmonton, North London. Writing poems in the language of today became entirely possible and meaningful. No doubt every age has added new vocabulary to the bank of language but to me, at the time, it was a revelation, mysterious in content, yes, but modern in vocabulary and musical in cadence, creating a frisson of anticipation from the first line to the last. I learned Prufrock by heart.

I didn’t get started until my early twenties. Married, working for a Christian Book publisher, I wrote a few that were given space in the house magazine. Otherwise, a long silence until a few more poems emerged after buying our first ramshackle house and changing jobs. Working in a wholefood warehouse had a different feel to working for a publisher but we were distributing food for body and soul, whereas I had been distributing books and records just for the soul. A Christian company, Community Foods originated in the famous Tolmers Square in the squat years. The continuation of a former wholefood business by a hippie returning from India after an experience of compassion which lead to his Christian conversion, a surprising turn of events in India. A very satisfying experience of publication in this period was a poem on the Christmas card to our customers.

We moved as a growing family to Godmanchester in the late 80s when I was part way through an Open University Humanities Degree, a multidisciplinary approach to literature and art, completed in 96 after an encounter with the poetry of Jack Mapanje, a Malawian poet imprisoned in Mikuyu Jail without trial for 3 years, 7 months and 16 days. Amnesty had taken his case up and he had been recently released, having received only 1 postcard out of the hundreds, or possibly thousands, sent.
His poem, Skipping without ropes, read at the OU Summer School at York, triggered A Fat Word, a short poem which celebrated the choices involved in the prisoners’ act of defiance and later won 2nd place alongside a more famous poet than me, in the Bedford Open Poetry Comp of 2003. Jack Mapanje was amongst the poets invited by Linda Gamlin in her period curating the poetry events at the CB1 café in Mill Road.

Returning to full-time work in November 2005, I took a temporary post at the Environment Agency, de-regulating 5 sets of 900 water abstraction licence records. It was fascinating and seminal work, producing poems that gradually, with promotion by colleagues, resulted in an informal resident poet status. After almost 5 years in two different posts, temps were given the thumbs down and I moved on.

Meanwhile, at CB1, after Linda Gamlin moved to the West Country, some members of the Joy of Six, a Poetry Performance Group, plus one or two other regulars, volunteered to continue the open mic and guest poet nights at the Café. After a short period, as we grew out of the changing space in the café and held guest nights at Michaelhouse. I took the job of selling the books that our guest poets brought to the events. Several years later, I followed in Emily Dening’s well-trodden footsteps and took on the accounts and the annual application for local authority funding which I was all too glad had been efficiently initiated by Emily. Other group members, people I regarded as better connected than myself, identified and invited the interesting and excellent guest poets we brought to our open-mic audience.

A number of different venues followed Michaelhouse, costs and accessibility being important to us and our sponsors, while our hosts were keen on the increased customer base for their venues. My accounts experience gradually grew but sadly the Local Authority funding became less as first the County and then the City had to reduce its commitments and finally cut altogether as the criteria changed and we were no longer able to meet it. So our time at CB2 Bistro in Norfolk St followed, first upstairs and then in the basement, definitely not a plus for accessibility and eventually an opportunity at The Blue Moon arose, where we would be on the Ground floor again.

During this time, I took a mentoring course with Jim Bennet of Poetry Kit and later with David Underdown, a poet in the Cinnamon stable, in which I worked up a pamphlet which, with a number of changes and depending on target, I’m sending out hopefully to pamphlet competitions.
I’ve attended the Aldeborough and Torbay Poetry Festivals on a number of occasions and was even invited (and paid!) to read at a small Torbay event in 2007.

All in all, I’m very small fry in the poetry world but have enjoyed being part of the scenery so far and am happy to play a part in compering open mic nights at our new venue, the Town & Gown. Even less accounts input seems to be required as we have the theatre free so that our audience have some spare spondulas to pay for drinks. We do have some website overheads and hope to be able to invite guest poets from time to time, especially those simply wanting to promote their new collections. We will be welcoming contributions on those nights, passing a hat round, perhaps, to pass on to our visitor. We can also take card offerings now.

Oh, maybe I should leave you with a poem. A Fat Word, which I mentioned earlier and which was first published by Interpreter’s House in 2003 after it came second alongside a poem by Christopher North. The Judge was Mario Petrucci who has also trodden our boards since then. You can find a list of some of the poets who have read for us since 2006 in the Archive section of our website.

A Fat Word

(For Jack Mapanje – in celebration of his poem – Skipping without rope)

Choice
is a fat word
for the lean task
of skipping without a rope.
It is too rounded for
the thin opportunity
the width of
a rope
suggests.
It is too juicy
for the hollow circle
that the rope inscribes.
It is full of life
in a cell
packed full of lives.
Choice
is the fattest word
for the lean task
of skipping
without a rope.