The new grey phone in the hallThat never rangUntil one day nervouslyI had to answer It was my uncle from SpainHis father had died that morningWhilst he was on holiday My first conversation was cut short“Yes dead, your dad is dead”. Silence and then a sobThen his wife Sue saying “We’re coming home”. I could…
poetry
My Father’s Things: The Optical Level: Thames Valley Texas
I am currently working on a project called ‘My Father’ s Things’ which is a series of drawings I did last year to stay sane amidst the chaos of my life then..don’t ask…the chaos has departed and is now far away. This is the first draft of the first poem that I plan to attach…
The New World
Poetry and I have not been getting on…. In fact I have been ignoring poetry, shelving it, filing it and generally pushing it to the back of my mind for the past decade.To start with this was deliberate as the combination of employment in an art school (note word art there not a writing school)…
The Rattle Bag
This rather nice vintage French leather bag came my way yesterday and I am going to use it to carry my poetry around in and hence the name ‘the Rattle Bag’ which I copped from the Heaney and Hughes anthology title… As Heaney said :Ted suggested we call it by the name of a strange…
Memoirs – Ford and Morrison- Dealing with Death
I have just read these two linked memoirs. In discussing his memoir of his parents Ford specifically mentions the influence of his friend’s earlier book. Both are very strong works although maybe because of its particularly English subject and atmosphere the Morrison just shades it for me especially as my own parents both died…
What I am doing…
I wrote this statement in 2010. Nothing has changed. I am using this ‘credo’ as the basis of my new ‘great leap forward’ with the Thames art and technology idea.. Delineation of ‘Theory’: An artist’s personal statement Throughout my ‘art-working’ life some things have remained stubbornly, one might even say obsessively’, constant. Be it…
Fishing in Fog: Thames Valley Texas
FISHING IN FOG A winter Sunday, fog and frost Two figures climbing a stile Boots crunching crisp grass underfoot Head toward the Thames at Clifton My father not yet seventy, still working And I back home for a day’s fishing Struggling with tackle and reels in the cold Sit expecting nothing, no fish bite in…
Back on TRACK? : Oxford and Nottingham
Back in 2010 I started off with the title Track for a multimedia M.A. that finally did not happen. However the seeds of some kind of project centred around the impact of the railway on the movement of people and ideas started then. This is now bearing fruit as a double project centred on my…
New Poems
ROOM FOR POETRY I have a room for poetry Two bookcases of neatly filed books Arranged by region of course Then chronologically They have been gathering dust for years Unread, unopened, a wall of doubt Twenty years I have been a closed book Until today the penny dropped The dam burst, the Bastille fell Words…
Lost Nottingham: Paper Boats on Private Road
PAPER BOATS ON PRIVATE ROAD A lone slim figure in Sunday best gets off the tram on Woodborough Road, Hesitates then proceeds down Private Road until it dog-legs east at his destination As he turns along the high brick wall he hears children’s laughter, a maid calling He stands at the gate hidden by trees and calls, the maid comes to…