Poetry As Therapy

Primary school league tables, standard assessment testing of young children, enforced moderation sessions and the inequities of OfStEd inspections seem to be causing me much aggravation of late (as I sit with thirty reports to write on this fine and sunny Saturday evening). And so, by means of a therapeutic poetry pressure relieving valve, here…

You wait for a bus and then half a dozen come at once …

Very pleased that I seem to be riding a wave of luck with the dafter poems at the moment. Tripe (in Northern Life Magazine), The Copenhagen Interpretation (in Blue Nib), Aberration (in Picaroon Poetry), Cosy (in Spillwords) and Toast (in Three Drops From A Cauldron) all making the light of day this last fortnight. There…

Not a good day …

At school this morning, while feeling pleased about the response at the Hallbankgate curlew bash over the weekend (with excellent bands Talkin Fellas and Stooshie, as well as the lovely poets with whom I shared a stage) and looking forward to a good week with Class 4 before the Whit half-term holiday, my back ‘went’….

Buzzer #WorldBeeDay

In honour of World Bee Day, I’ve dug out a bee poem (set in the late autumn, I know, but here it is nevertheless) … Buzzzzzzzzzz … Surrounded by a year gone cold, And leaves fresh from their tumble, While huddled in my garden chair, I heard a bombus rumble. Then into view I spied the source, En…

Curlew 2 (son of curlew) …

I am involved in this RSPB event today (May 19th). I have the honour of reading Karen Izod’s poem Saltmarsh, Blakeney, which describes quite beautifully part of Blakeney National Nature Reserve in Norfolk where the coast is managed for breeding waders and over-wintering wildfowl. Karen’s poem contrasts nicely with my own frenetic first encounter with…

The Copenhagen Interpretation of E-mails (after Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg)

Here is the truth about poetic reality … The Copenhagen Interpretation of E-mails (after Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg): I read somewhere, at sometime, that everything and nothing exists outside the space you’re placed. Closed doors are quantum barriers separating the countless possibilities of constantly branching parallel universes. Facts on the outsides of rooms are…

Raising the Profile of Tripe Poetry …

… in the May/June issue of Northern Life Magazine : ) Tripe ! Amongst the dark foreboding hills of ancient Lancashire, The eerie howls rolled down the moors o’er misty peatland bogs, To echo round the cobbled streets of Little Ormstonmere And cause the good folk there to stare and shudder in their clogs. For knew…

Speak!Easy

Tickets here … Do come 🙂 

KabAreT@Kittchen

Next Saturday, at Luke and Em’s excellent establishment in Hawkshead (near Ambleside in the Lake District), Speak!Easy kicks off with yours truly. Today, Fiona and I thought we’d do a recce and try out the Kittchen fare along with Bruce&Luke’s coffee. We decided to go early by ferry (as it was a bank holiday weekend)…