News & Events
New collection: BELIEVING IN THE PLANET
My new collection: BELIEVING IN THE PLANET is being published in May 2024 by Poetry Space.
‘In my new collection I draw my immediate surroundings in an outer London suburb to explore environmental issues which affect us today. There are poems about the trees and flowers which grow on the verges and in front gardens, how even in hot and cold weather, they manage to survive and how tiny flowers and dandelions manage to bloom in the cracks between paving stones. One poem is an imaginary journey to the early days of the planet billions of years ago when horsetails, the ancestors of trees and other plants, began to grow on its bare surface. Other poems are visions based on memories of places I’ve visited and some are inspired by paintings which take me to places I’ve never visited like Collioure in the South of France where Derain painted with Matisse during a long hot summer. The book includes two long poems, one about the Abbess Hildegarde of Bingen, the famous visionary who lived in the 11th century. The other relates to the dramatic early life of the Italian artist Artemisia, who was very famous during her lifetime in the seventeenth century but largely forgotten until recent years.’
Recent Interview
I was interviewed for the Palmers Green Community website and Newsletter, about Siege and Symphony.
Click on the button below if you’d like to read the interview:
Siege and Symphony – New Collection
My new collection of poetry, Siege and Symphony, has now been published.
The theme of the book is celebration and endurance. The first section is devoted to poems about the planet and its present state. The second and third sections include poems about contemporary issues such as homelessness, also poems about women and personal poems.
All profits from the book are going to The Woodland Trust.
If you would like a copy of the book please contact me or www.secondlightlive.co.uk/
Siege and Symphony – New Collection
My new book, Siege and Symphony, is due out late Autumn 2021, published by Second Light Publications.
There is a section of poems about the planet and the way we treat it, also personal poems, poems about women and homelessness as well as the long title poem about the siege of Leningrad and Shostakovich writing the Leningrad symphony. Profits from the book will go to the Woodland Trust.
These are poems of experience, fully cognisant of ‘the welter we call life’, but they are also celebratory poems, proving this poet’s deep kinship with the earth and its radiance. In the long title poem, Myra Schneider enters fully and naturally into the life and times of Shostakovich, the terrible hardships and the struggle to stay alive. She is an astonishingly porous, unbounded poet.
Moniza Alvi
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In Siege and Symphony, Myra Schneider draws on memory, paintings and her beloved local park to gift us a passionate, vividly detailed and sensuous celebration of the natural world and the human spirit. It is a celebration harrowed and haunted by the knowledge of the catastrophic destruction we have brought to the natural world. These poems are wonderfully brave and generous acts of adoration, warning and refusal to despair.
Mark Roper
Collaboration Project with artist Chris Holley
This collaboration is taking the form of virtual sessions at Wokingham Library for 4 weeks beginning on April 20th.
Lifting the Sky
A series of three online, illustrated talks by visual artist Chris Holley on the mutual creative inspiration between herself and poet Myra Schneider in which you hear about, see – and get a chance to discuss – the poems that inspired the painting and, in turn, the paintings that inspired the poems.
Here is the series of art works and poems in which Chris examines in the programmes.
Tuesday 20 April | 11.00-12.00
Session 1: Hepworth sculpture, a poem and a shawl: movement and dynamic line – featuring Bird and She Is poems.
Monday 24 May | 14.00-15.00
Session 2: Musical inspiration and creative interpretation – featuring Funfair and Like Small Wishes poems.
Wednesday 23 June | 14.00-15.00
Session 3: Matisse and the soaring of the spirit – featuring Le Cheval and Flame poems.
These are free virtual events, for booking information email libraries@wokingham.gov.uk
My poem Seahorses is now on the Seahorse Trust’s Facebook page
My poem Seahorses, which was broadcast on Poetry Please Radio 4, is now on the Facebook page of the Seahorse Trust (www.theseahorsetrust.org).
The Seahorse Trust has produced my poem with a beautiful design. It can be viewed on their Facebook page.
Poetry Please - BBC Radio 4 - Sunday 10th January - 4pm
My poem Seahorses in my book Lifting the Sky was broadcast during Poetry Please – Radio 4 on Sunday January 10th at 4.30pm.
The programme was repeated on Saturday 16th at 11.30pm.
Link to the programme:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r31j
November 2020
I am Poet of the Month at Chichester Poetry Open Mic in November 2020.
I am introducing myself and four of my poems which will all be on the site permanently.
Closing date: 6th August 2020
I am judging the Second Light Poetry Competition for women poets.
Information:
- £300 First Prize for each of Long (no upper limit) and Short (max 50 lines) poems
- £150 Second Prize (1 poem from either category)
- £75 Third Prize (1 poem from either category)
- Winning & Commended Poems published (in full or extract) in magazine ARTEMISpoetry
- Winners offered a London reading.
Entry:
- Long poem: £6 each.
- Short poems: £4 each or £9 for 3, £14 for 8.
Enter by post (2 copies) or online.
**Members are entitled to one free entry into the competition. Join now to be eligible.** (see About Second Light/Joining)
Rules & Entry – Direct link to payment at Poetry P F online shop
Note from the judge:
“…I shall be looking for poems which travel, poems in which the form fits the subject matter and the language is alive. This is a time when contemporary issues are very much at the front of everyone’s minds and, very understandably, give rise to strong feelings. On the whole, I believe poems dealing with this kind of subject matter work best if the approach is indirect. When I read entries which deal with this type of material I shall be particularly considering whether it has been fully transformed into poetry.”
The results will be posted on the website by 30th September. Once winning poems (or extracts) are published in ARTEMISpoetry, they will be available to read here
2 Saturday 28th March - 1.35-3.55pm
I am running a workshop Our Planet Today, Palmers Green Library
The workshop is part of a day of two workshops with an ecological theme. Poet and experience tutor Katherine Gallagher is running a workshop in the morning (10.40 am – 1pm).
Advance booking only: Cost £28 (conc. £21) For full details and booking please contact me.
Friday 14th February - 8pm
I am the guest reader at Ware Poets at Ware Arts Centre, Kibes Ln, Ware SG12 7DE admission £4.00, conc.£2.50 Floor readings
Saturday 30th November - 3pm
I will be reading poems at an exhibition Robert Aldous’s paintings during a talk he is giving.
At the exhibition of paintings by Robert Aldous entitled Stillness the poems I read will relate to some of his paintings in the exhibition and include poems in my recent books inspired by his work.
Booking not needed.
One Paved Court, Richmond TW9 1LZ
Saturday 23rd November
I am tutoring a poetry workshop for women The Potency of Poetry in the Art Workers Guild, Holborn, WC1
1.45-4.15pm
This workshop is part of the Second Light Network’s the autumn festival.
Waiting list places only available.
Details: www.secondlightlive.co.uk
Friday 4th October 2019 - 6.30pm for 7pm
I am reading poems from Lifting the Sky and my poem in the anthology A Scream of Many Colours (Poetry Space) with five other contributors. Proceedings from the anthology with poems about disaster and abuse go to Médecins Sans Frontières.
Venue:
Trinity United Reform Church, 1 Buck St, Camden Town, London NW1 8NJ
Friday 28th June - 8pm
I am reading at Fourth Friday at the Poetry Café, Covent Garden with Mimi Khalvati.
Plus music Fran McGillivray & Mike Burke; voices from the floor.
£8/£6
The Poetry Café
22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden
London WC2H 9BX
More details: https://fourthfriday.wordpress.com/
Tuesday 25th June 2.30-4.30 pm
Summer Celebration at Ripley Arts Centre [Bromley] see map
Part of a series: Shortlands Poetry Circle
Guest poets are Mimi Khalvati and MyraSchneider.
£7.50
Booking Essential: Contact Jane Knight on 0208 467 4385 or e-mail: jlk888@hotmail.co.uk
Come and join the Shortlands Poetry Circle for our Summer Celebration reading, Buffet included in the ticket price.
Saturday 27th April - 6.45pm
I am reading at Poetry in Palmers Green with Matt Barnard, Pam Zimmerman-Smith, Tim Waller and Lynda How. The compere is Martyn Crucefix.
The event is at 6.45 for 7.15pm in the Parish Centre, St John’s Church, Bourne Hill (on the corner with Green Lanes) Palmers Green, London N13 4DB.
The evening includes an open mic session, books for sale, refreshments.
Entry: £5 (conc. £3.50).
Friday 8th March - 8pm
Guest poet at Monthly Poetry Night, hosted by Victoria Pugh.
8pm for 8.30pm start at Reading Poetry Café
South Street Arts Centre, 21 South Street
Reading, Berkshire, RG1 4QU
Thursday 17th January - 7pm
Poems for the NHS celebrates 70 years of the NHS and includes poems by many poets.
The Poetry Café
22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden
London WC2H 9BX
Saturday 3rd November - 7pm
Lifting the Sky book launch at The Poetry Café, Covent Garden.
The Poetry Café
22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden
London WC2H 9BX
Myra Schneider reads the title poem, Lifting the Sky. Watch video
Myra Schneider reads the poem Seahorses. Watch video
Friday 16th November - 10.30am – 1pm
I’m tutoring a poetry workshop Finding the Poem for women poets.
Enquiries to: Dilys Wood: p.wood159@btinternet.com
The Art Workers Guild
6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury
London WC1N 3AT
Saturday 17th November - 5.45pm
Second launch for Lifting the Sky as part of the Second Light Network for Women Poets Autumn Festival. Everyone welcome.
The Art Workers Guild (the Gradidge Room)
6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury
London WC1N 3AT