Lewes poet Janet Sutherland is Chichester's Open Mic Poetry guest

She’ll be treating audiences to poems from her latest collection, The Messenger House, which has just been published by Shearsman books. The Messenger House is about family history, particularly her great-great-grandfather’s travels to Serbia in the 1840s with his friend Mr Gutch, a Queen’s Messenger.

Janet Sutherland grew up on a dairy farm. She is the author of five poetry collections. Her previous collections, all from Shearsman, are Home Farm (2019), Bone Monkey, Hangman’s Acre and Burning the Heartwood. Her poems are widely anthologised and published in magazines such as New Statesman, The Spectator and The North. She won the 2017 Kent and Sussex Poetry Prize and received a Hawthornden Fellowship for 2018. She has an MA in American poetry.

Janet said: “I’m looking forward to reading poems from my new book, The Messenger House, which came out this April. It’s based around two journals of my great-great-grandfather, George Davies, which he wrote in 1846 and 1847 when he travelled to Serbia with a Queen’s Messenger called Mr Gutch. The journals were handed down in my family, but it was only in 2013 when I visited a cousin, that I remembered them and slowly started to transcribe them. It’s been a ten-year journey making this book. Mr Gutch carried despatches for the foreign office and once they’d arrived at Alexnitza in Serbia, the messages were taken on to Constantinople (Istanbul), by local messengers. Mr Gutch and George waited at Alexnitza for despatches to arrive back from Constantinople and then set off for home. They travelled by train, steamer, horse and carriage and by riding on post horses. The journeys were difficult and dangerous. While they were there, they met a travel writer called Captain Spencer who was gathering material for his next book. As well as George’s journals, the book contains my own journals from a journey I made in 2018 which retraced George’s footsteps. The journals interweave. Alongside the journals are many poems, letters, messenger regulations, and other testimony of various kinds from then and now.”

Open Mic spokesman Barry Smith said: “We’re delighted to feature Janet’s poetry for our Chichester audiences. She’s been a regular visitor to New Park Centre and her work always elicits an appreciative response. There will be a chance for local poets to share the spotlight with Janet in the open mic section of the evening. Visiting poets are always impressed by the energy, commitment and sheer quality of the poems read by our local writers. It’s a chance for people to get their message across, whatever the subject or style of their poetry. Listeners are equally welcome. Sign up on the door to read or just sit back to listen and enjoy the evening.”

Open Mic Poetry, Wednesday, May 31, 7.30pm, Jubilee Hall, New Park Centre, Chichester, PO19 7XY. Entrance £5 on the door. www.sdpf.org.uk