I will start with a link to my guest blog on Sarah Snell-Pym’s site (more about here below) that explains why the final was in Cheltenham, several reasons including it being the first place I ran an event away from home (somewhere I had never been and knew no-one in the area) four years ago and I have run them yearly since – the night before Medicine Unboxed and a little about what that is and why I keep going back. Guest blog: http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/?p=802 Celebration of Quiet Compere so far video and crowd-funder: See the outcome of my one-week self-taught crash-course in video-making in this video about the tours with photos, quotes, chat and the story of the rainbow scarf here: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-quiet-compere-poetry-and-gallery-tour-2016/ Kiran Millwood Hargrave: Twitter: @Kiran_MH Kiran told us a story about Tiberius being rubbed to death with scales of a fish. “rubbed til we bled each other out and lay milk-eyed on marble.” I liked how she engaged with the space by mentioning the pomegranate wallpaper and the line “something like happiness misting our epiphany.” I loved her pig with a “tassel of a tail”. Website: http://www.kiranmillwoodhargrave.co.uk/ Chris Hemingway: Chris, so understated with impact here: “maybe all these nothings added up to something and maybe that was me.” And in your poem about Personal space: “fools himself he is passing through, he spreads books across the adjoining seats.” The Supremes “lyric with a sub-text of abandonment.” A poem here: http://threedropspoetry.co.uk/2015/10/07/rumplestiltskin-by-chris-hemingway/ Sharon Larkin: I was impressed Sharon did a full space set. She explored the sexual appetite of an alien in Venit, vidit, fugit ‘He came suddenly. / Departed in an instant / leaving a note: / “Recalled to my native galaxy. / Thanks for all the probings”‘. And from Island Fever: ‘I chart the tide’s ebb, flow / ebb, flow / as a heartbeat’ and ‘hope appears to rise with each dawn’. Her blog, Coming up with the Words, is at: https://sharonlarkinjones.wordpress.com Dan Cooper: I was pulled into the refrain in Infinity Pool: “Mum drives us to school. Dad’s got an Infinity Pool.”. and a phrase that grabbed me was “harnessed in drama”. I have said it over out-loud several times just now – it feels good. “Holy runs thick like Tewkesbury mustard.” and “Forgive me because I have sinned. I took my own sweets into the cinema.” I do that and always feel guilty! Ian Whiteley: I always enjoy Ian’s Craiglockhart and 666 poems and the rhyming of ‘cat in’ and ‘latin’. Ian’s page is here: http://www.thecrowsofalbion.com/ New tracks here: https://soundcloud.com/the-man-at-the-back-1/ Brenda-Read Brown Brenda performed three pieces about landing on the moon, with the line from one of them being: “If I could slip through the lace of clouds below.” and suitably for Quiet Compere “nothing is all there is/ and silence feels as if it’s loud.” She also performed a piece about the space left by a teenager who has moved out: ” broken jewellery, like teenage tears,/ has become one with the carpet near the door.” “It takes me two full days to clear each room and yet they’ll never quite be empty, because I don’t want to forget.” http://www.brendaread-brown.co.uk/ Michael Scott: I love Michael’s punchline in My neighbour speaks in Daily Mail headlines and the way it is easier to avoid conflict and “I said (LONG PAUSE) You missed a bit!”. His poem My Dad painted by Francis Bacon was striking “We wait all night for 3 studies of the human head to dry back into my Dad.” I heard the rooms joint intake of breath at that point. Find out more about Michael here: http://www.littleusherette.com/ Sarah Snell-Pym Sarah is obsessed with space and even bought a space dress and made a space pamphlet of poems for the occasion and gave me one with a dedication in to The Quiet Compere! Brilliant! In her poem Microcosm “in a puddle patterns are repeating. In the stars patterns are completing.” Onward to the edge. ” A code within a code/a mystery that is never solved/It is the universe that unfolds. “We find questions to answer another time.” http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/sarah/ Peter Wyton Peter performed a poem about the beginning of time, Back to the Drawing Board  “They wanted oceans/so I gave them oceans/They befouled them/and made a cesspool of the Seven seas… Now they want space. I’ll give them space/ and in the void/I’ll give it a second try/Any God can make a mistake.” Disposal upon pre-request was funny. ” Let the Severn do what it likes with me. Be a devil. Drop the urn in as well and sod the environment agency.” https://peterwytonpoet.wordpress.com/ Mark Blayney “Playing chess, you stripped to distract me. An illegal move.” Mark’s space was the space left behind by a person: “You left your jeans on the radiator and I woke finding half of you.” Shakespeare results read like Football Pools had a receptive audience! He read a poem about his son: “my son destroys flowers. He does it with such love – bringing me the pieces.” http://markblayney.weebly.com/ Sharon’s husband also took some photos to relieve me of one task in the evening. It was a pleasure to be able to listen, time and take notes, without having to get a good shot (I take about 40 per poet) of each performer. Extra thanks also got to Dan Cooper for his simple and striking design of Quiet Compere logo and flyers. The finale. So this is it for 2015. Or is it? I will be doing my summing up of the year in three parts like I did in 2014. Looks out for these posts in the weeks before New Year’s Eve. Have a Happy festive season. xxx Michael Scott on Quiet Compere format: “it was a lovely intimate night. I love the ‘Quiet Compere’ approach, there is so much fluff and noise attached to poetry that sometimes it just seems like a jumble of achievements and posing, minimalism wins every time for me.”