I’ve been reading novels recently and it has been a while since I wrote about poetry reads so I’m glad to get back to it. I have three poetry books on the go at present; Diaries of Exile by Yannis Ritsos, Memorandum poems for the fallen by Vanessa Gebbie and Marine by Alan Jenkins and John Kinsella. It’s thanks to the…
On the evening of first July my fellow poet, Neil Beardmore and I held a poetry reading at All Saint’s Church in Wing to remember the men killed on the first day of the battle of the Somme. In choosing which poems to include we went back to the words of the men who fought…
I’m launching my second poetry collection, Voices from Stone and Bronze today, and I will be reading in Milton Keynes, London and North Wales. You can order your copy from Cinnamon Press. With thanks to Jan Fortune, Vanessa Gebbie, and Jeremy Banning and also all the members of the Thursday advanced poetry group who…
“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore, rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers,who sent their sons…
On the walls of the First World War Memorial on Thiepval ridge are the names of 72,194 men, most of whom were killed during the Battle of the Somme (1st July -18th November 1916). They have no known grave, either because their remains were never found (they were obliterated by shell-fire) or because by the…
I’ve decided to look back over a year of reading rather than producing my list of books of the year and therefore things that you should read too! There are books which I’d recommend but it’s up to you as many of us have more books to read than hours in which to read them.…
Following on from the early posting about Half Life of Fathers the poetry dinner is now in full swing with guests, William Blake, Issac Rosenberg, Christina Rossetti, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney and whoever it was who wrote the Song of Solomon. Vanessa Gebbie is organising them into reciting their poems as follows: I’d like to…
Today I’m delighted to welcome the multi-talented Vanessa Gebbie to my blog. Vanessa is the author of The Coward’s Tale, published by Bloomsbury, Words From A Glass Bubble and Storm Warning two short story collections published by Salt, editor of Short Circuit, A Guide to the Art of the Short Story which has recently gone…