Month: August 2023

From journalist to poet

The “words on a line” world premiere

Yup, calling it a world premiere may sound hyperbolic. But, technically at least, it happens to be true…

So here I am in full flow (rapture the photographer, Fabio Barry, called it) belting out one of the poems I read to a packed house (more hyperbole) in the Secret Garden behind the Castle Bookshop in Ludlow on August 5th.

Links to each poem below.

I am indebted to my poetry coach Pele Cox for getting me this far. The journey has only just begun.

Rehearsals with Pele at the home of Stephen Cox RA.
When you can’t find a lectern during rehearsals use a squirrel trap. Simps!

The hare

A little loose. Like a soft toy
sewn on where it’s lost it’s stuffing. 
Magpies showing 
zero respect

You sketched our field
with straight line speed.
Sent my blood coursing,
bounding. The hearts’ pounding
now stopped. In a beat.

A car I think. 
A scrape in the verge.
Your final form neverlasting. 

All this at Easter. No resurrection. 
No headstone. No graveside grieving. 
But a single tulip, this reedy
stem outstripping the long grass to
a mouth wide open.
Screaming. 

Before the petals 
dropped. 
And the black and white leaves fell from the lung trees 
clacking and hopping.
The lung trees over the rhubarb patch at the bottom of our garden.