Margo, the stand up poet

I do love a good hat, so I couldn’t resist talking to Margo when I was visiting the Handmade Fair at Stonor Park. Turns out, her hat is far from the only interesting thing about her.

“I’ve been making jewellery for 31 years. Many years ago I had a very close friend who went travelling, this was in the days when we wrote letters, and she wrote to me when she was in Australia and India and I wrote letters back to her. It just became a really lovely thing to do, to write letters about your experiences and be as humorous as you could. We then did some travelling together and we wrote our own version of a sort of blog, which made me I realised that I could throw some words together.

Then I had my second child late and the writing got put to the background and I completely forgot about it. When he left for university and I had that big empty nest syndrome going on which was a bit daunting, because working on your own at home making jewellery you need something to stop you from working all the time and have a conversation!

I had that big empty nest thing going on

So I did a bit of open mike with my guitar, playing my songs. And then I wrote a poem for a friend of mine when I was dating someone in Southport and I’d gone there and thought it had changed drastically, and she read it out to a whole group of people in Yorkshire which influenced me to go to a group nearby in Lisguard where we critiqued each other’s work. It was awfully nerve wracking.

But then I started performing the poetry with them. If I could make a living out of it I would, but that’s not going to happen, so I keep on with the jewellery making to support my poetry, which is what I really enjoy.”

What’s your favourite poem? Do share it!