I am the self-consumer of my woes

They rise and vanish in oblivious host

Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live, like vapours tossed

The image of the Lady of Shalott sat in a boat, floating down the river to her death, famously captured the pre-Raphaelite imagination, successfully ticking all their boxes with Arthurian legend, the natural world and a mysterious, ethereal woman at the centre of the action. Personally, I adore ‘The Lady of Shalott’ for its fascinating, complex and multi-layered web of imagery and symbolism, that is just as bewitching today as it was to readers in the 1800s.

This was my fourth year attending the Bristol Poetry Institute’s Annual Reading. Normally, we would be gathered in the great hall of the Wills Memorial Building and, upon arriving barely on time, I would be sat in a row towards the back of the hall, rummaging around my rucksack for my glasses. This year, I was sat at my desk staring at a Crowdcast on my laptop with Claudia Rankine on my screen.