Despite the bitter cold here in the East of England (snow is forecast) I made msyelf go out for a walk/escape from the office at lunchtime. Worth braving the cold as down by the river Ouzel I came very close to kingfisher on one of the pollarded willows by the water’s edge. You only ever…
Day Fourteen – Time for some Salt
If you have not heard yet of Salt Books, based in Cambridge, England then you are in for a treat. They publish some of the best and most original poets writing today. About this time last year I treated myself to a subscription to their poetry bank – the best kind of bank around if…
Samantha Wynne Rhydderch
I am really enjoying the wit,humour and underlying sadness of the poems in her second collection Not in These shoes – my lucky find on Sunday. My favourite poem is Crayfish Tail Salsa – based I suspect on a real experience of working in a hotel and how exploited you can be as a young…
Day Seven
I’ve been browsing the Blackbird website today – an on-line journal of literature and the arts which has lots of fine poetry to offer. Today’s poet is Katie Ford who has published two collections including Colosseum (Graywolf Press, 2008), which won the 2009 Levis Reading Prize. As well as her poems Blackbird includes a conversation…
Day Six
While elder son was at his guitar lesson I discovered one of the charity shops in town was open (unusual for a Sunday) and spent a happy half hour browsing their books. Came away with Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch’s Not in These shoes. Worth buying just for the opening poem Decoupage.
One Hundred Days
From 1st December I’ve committed myself to writing (or if no time to write) reading a poem every day for one hundred days. A day without any poetry in it is rather like a day without smiles. Today is Day five and I’ve just finished revising over twenty poems to send off for critique. The…
Much Progress
After a hectic summer on the work and domestic front I’ve been managing to find time for poetry this month. Sent the next batch of poems to my mentor in North Wales earlier this week. I’ve have been working through the poems she has read so far polishing them and sending them out. Can’t wait…
Slow Trains Literary Journal
Two of my poems Reading Mayakovsky and Transient have recently appeared on Slow Trains. They are rather wintry for July.
Small sucesses
It was good to have a poem appear last week on Ink, Sweat and Tears. There is nothing like seeing one of your poems ‘in print’ to give you a lift. According to my paypal account I seem to have won a small scale poetry competition organised by the Write Idea. We had to write…
Lots of poems
The lack of blog posts have been because I’ve been busy writing. What better excuse. It has been good. I’ve had a couple of acceptances with poems due to appear on Everyday poets and Ink Sweat and tears.