NORMAL TOWN POET
A link to this article was shared onine by by Martin Malone former editor of Interpreter’s House which pre Martin I helped survive as a paper edition by creating a basic website.The price of progress is that the magazine now now exists only online. https://theinterpretershouse.org/ The article by Wendy Pratt of SPELT magazine https://speltmagazine.com/ available…
Having dipped my toe in Poetry World UK again I starting to get my bearings. Here a online statistics crib that may tell some of the story: Poetry book sales in the UK Source: https://wordsrated.com/poetry-book-sales-statistics/ It not great. The biggest news to me as a 65 year old male is that the demographics of actual…
The playgrounds were strewn with ashSmoke still billowed from the underpassFurther out in the estuary steam roseFrom the tanker now beached and rusting Lights now only flickered around the estateOn every other day to conserve energyMilk floats converted to run on steamCarried bodies of those who froze Up the icy streets to the crematoriumThe one…
I will be offering this as a free download from this evening as it Bastille day.GRASS CLOUDS contains everything I have written as ‘poetry’ since I arrived in Nottingham in 2002 so about 20 years worth Contains 80 poems and some illustrations. I will be reading from it on Tuesday August 2nd at the Organ…
Privilege Is mine and always will be it is my birth-rightI am born to this and never shall let it slipI am the world king and God’s chosen oneTo let go of power is to betray you all I will make the problems disappearAll it takes is character as my masters told meDrilled with a…
COLLATERAL (for D.D.) Windows shake, tyres screech Litter blows across the estate Gunshots ricochet as sound The Divis Flats, Brixton Market Beirut, Jerusalem, Sarajevo A baby cries, a baby cries The broadcast stops, the helicopter hovers There’s a smell of cordite, a cold wind A face you have seen before on the news Starting to…
I have spent the afternoon reading the beginning of Yvor Winters ‘The Function of Criticism’ which I acquired about 30 years ago. I also read a couple of interesting articles online. The first by the poet David Yezzi is interesting and makes a case for his continuing relevance. The second is a wider career over-view…
Doff your cap, Toe the line,Do a good job,Know your place,Speak when spoken to,Don’t talk back, keep mum, Be reliableHold your knife properly,Don’t leave the table until told to,Watch your step, March in time, Defer to your betters, Salute the flag,Be punctual, Do a good job, Never argue, Be polite, Bow,Scrape,Be invisible. If you do…
DIVING FOR CHANGE Below and to my right from this window a Volvo lorry crunches gearshredded leaf, dust and gravel trickles from bumper and wheel-arch. The digging of the new pool has been going on now for two weeks. Yellow digger-buckets mouth the park’s soil and turf into lorries that rumble off, indicators flashing, down…