Fledge

Dandelion Sun A child’s sun finds a dream in young eyes.In blinks of dandelion eclipses,refracted light reflects on retinasholding warmth in ragged leavesbelow a flower standing up and out. Ryegrass and foxtail for company,a golden head of petals,swaying and slight,is there and gone and there again. The wings of friends unfold to test the airwith…

Book Review: Impermanence by Colin Bancroft

In the doctrines of Buddhism we are told that existence is transient and unpredictable. In the cycle of life nothing lasts, everything decays and because of this impermanence, attachments to things can cause suffering; which is a bit of a shame really, because Colin Bancroft’s collection of poems is a thing of loveliness and I’d…

November 1st 2020 … déjà vu, all over again

Borrowing the above phrase made famous by professional baseball player and undoubted sage Lawrence Peter ‘Yogi’ Berra, we do seem to have been here before. Back in March 2020, when news of the first coronavirus lockdown was sinking in and the UK came to a shuddering halt, I had been deep in preparations for an…

Quick October Update

An opportunity has arisen to write for The Yorkshire and Lancashire Times on the internet. The poetry blog entries I upload here on WordPress have attracted the attention of a group that publishes news, arts and literature features on the web and I have been asked to supply the occasional piece for circulation under their…

Interview with BBC Radio Cumbria Summer 2020

I have uploaded an edited version of Helen Millican’s radio programme. In the show, we discuss Fledge and the inspiration behind the poems. The interview took place in Lady Wood, Grasmere, about 200 metres along the old coffin route from Dove Cottage in a typical Cumbria downpour under a magnificent beech tree with a torrent…

FilmPoem

The opening poem in the collection ‘Fledge‘ has been made into a film by Em Humble. ‘Dandelion Sun‘ looks at how children’s dreams and ambitions can sometimes get trampled in the process of growing up. A child holding onto their dream, who refuses to submit to the many pressures of childhood and adolescence, where conformity…

Fledge – two poems

Originally posted on The Poetry Village:
Today we celebrate the recent Maytree release, Fledge by Jonathan Humble. The collection of poems under the title ‘Fledge’ begins with a reflection on how a wild urban childhood and encounters with nature in adolescence have resonated in adult life. There is a strong nature theme running through the…

Fledge Live Launch

Film from earlier in the evening at Northern Towers with a laptop and a webcam instead of the preferred occasion (sadly cancelled/postponed, who knows?) with wine, beer, music and little bits of cheese on sticks … Video ends abruptly (one poem from the end) when the 50p runs out in the meter and the internet…

Fledge Reviewed #4

Soooo happy with this lovely review from Write Out Loud on the publication of Fledge. Thank you Greg Freeman. 🙂 Link to the review on the Write Out Loud site >>> CLICK   Greg Freeman’s review …   Fledge: Jonathan Humble, Maytree Press by Greg Freeman Friday 31st July 2020 12:00 am Jonathan Humble lives in…

Fledge Reviewed #3

I am very grateful to Ali Thurm for taking the time to review Fledge. I couldn’t have asked for a more incisive and empathetic response to the poems. Visit Ali’s review here on her site where she writes updates on her novels (One Scheme Of Happiness, published Feb 2020 by Retreat West Books and The…

Fledge Reviewed #2

The second review of Fledge is back and it is fairly safe to say, I couldn’t be happier. Steve Whitaker at The Yorkshire Times has given a tremendously positive response to the collection as can be read here on this link  >>> CLICK Steve’s generous words have made an old poet very happy indeed ……

Fledge Reviewed #1

The first review is out for Fledge. Dr. Will Smith of Cumbria Life (Sam Read Books in Grasmere and judge in the Costa First Novel Awards) has written a nice piece about the collection in the magazine. I’m very pleased and relieved he liked the poems. We are now two weeks away from publication. Don’t…