Drowning upwards
Water lily flowers. Gracing us with their presence too briefly Then sinking like drowning men And stare as we might, praying for their return, All we see is our own reflection Unruffled. A world within the compass rose of the…
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[richard uridge]
Poetry, bikes, dementia care...
[richard uridge]
Poetry, bikes, dementia care...
Category Poetry
If music be the food of love then poetry may just be the language of emotion. Home for my own words and those of others who in some way inspire, inform, entertain or educate me.
Pele’s Poetry Podcast: Episode 12 – the odyssey of The Odyssey part 2
Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s Odyssey is certainly a blockbuster. But, I argue with Pele Cox in the second part of our Odyssey odyssey, it’s also a flockbuster with opinion splitting into two distinct herds. In this bonus episode we also explore…
Pele’s Poetry Podcast: Episode 11 – the odyssey of The Odyssey
Has Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film of summer 2026 deliberately ignored the fact that The Odyssey was conceived as a poem? If so, why and does it really matter? Pele Cox and I beg to differ in purist versus pragmatist! The…
The Sky Scratchers
These: the star-crossed brothers The men who would be gods Send satellites to space To hide the track lines of their addiction In plain sight. Wrangling hidden beasts by night Taurus, Aries, Ursa Major… No consolation. No direction. No Australis…
The Ballad of the Golden Boot
All Hermes feet they thread a pass Clean through a needle’s eye And weave their magic on the grass Opponents want to fly. The ice cool nerves of Dembélé Brain-freezing defenders. Rooney swooning on the telly France, he says, contenders.…
Pele’s Poetry Podcast: Episode 10 – World Cup football poems
The FIFA World Cup gives me and my co-host, Pele Cox, a golden opportunity to explore oral tradition and other strong but less obvious links between football and poetry. All in about the time it takes to get to a…
Pele’s Poetry Podcast: Episode 9 – Can Poetry Make You Happy?
Choosing John Clare, John Keats, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath to explore whether poetry can make you happy isn’t an obvious starting point. All four experienced the very opposite of happiness in their variously and famously tragic lives. So perhaps…
Pele’s Poetry Podcast: Episode 8 – Forbidden Love
It’s often said that great art begets great art. And that’s certainly the case with the Greek poet, Constantine P Cavafy, whose poetry inspired a young and little known British artist back in the 1960s. The artist is now a…
To a mechanic dying young
A cycle, Triumph Bonneville, Its throttle full up old Lords Hill. The rider leans with n’er a skid A dimpled grin beneath his lid. Kiwi-bred so hell to leather Clad instead in maroon sweater. Yet softly spoken, quite the catch…
Pele’s Poetry Podcast: Episode 7 – The A E Housman Shropshire Lad one
Recorded on the 90th anniversary of A E Housman’s death this Shropshire Lad and my co-presenter, the Shropshire lass Pele Cox, discuss the life and works of the poet who died on April 30 2026. We agree that his poetry…