Louise Larchbourne’s mother was the poet Rosamund Stanhope;
and she grew up both intimate with poetry and slightly daunted by her mother’s
minor but consistent success, combined as it was with extreme efficiency – she
was also a teacher of English – and considerable glamour.
In her early twenties she graduated from Birmingham
University in English, and then became an actor and a ‘local poet’, performing
regularly in Birmingham. Michael Pinney, of Bettiscombe Press, attended a
reading and asked if he could publish a collection; unfortunately he went
bankrupt shortly afterwards, on the verge of publishing
her book. Some poems were subsequently published in a Birmingham Arts Lab
collection of four women poets.
Her acting career was suspended after 12 years when she
became a single mother. She wrote little
during her son’s childhood, when the work of supporting him, through freelancing
in publishing, preoccupied her.
A few years ago she started writing more and joined Oxford
Backroom Poets. Now she is steering her career back into performance and
writing. As well as acting, she is interested in performance art, which she
sees potentially as 3-d moving poetry; she had the opportunity of doing some
when she was acting professionally, and loved it. For a year she has also been
giving readings and history sessions, and teaching creative writing, in
residential homes.
Among her favourite
poets are John Donne and Wallace Stevens.
She is edging towards a collection
Earthwash
August 2012
On The Virgin and
Child with Saint Joseph and the young Saint John the Baptist attributed to
Michelangelo Buonarroti, brush drawing in a thin wash of brown oil paint
(probably bistre), on a ground prepared with a green earth colour. The unusual
treatment of the subject shows it as probably after 1520.
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