EDWIN SMITH POEMS Back in October 2014 (now six years ago) I was on the first term of a Creative Writing M.A. at NTU. I was also with uncanny timing commissioned (the first and so far the only time I been commissioned) by R.I.B.A. through Apple and Snakes to write in response to a lovely…
creative writing
My First Telephone Call: Thames Valley Texas
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…
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)…
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…
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…
Burning Books – hiding in plain view?
Last year I did a reading for Nottingham Poetry Festival in which I produced a small ‘polemical’ pamphlet called ‘Burning Books’. The pamphlet was a one off and most of the poems after ‘outing’ in paper form were then hidden away as ‘too political’ for my readers by myself! I censored myself which crazy but…
Blurred Fences : Thames Valley Texas
A Christmas Poem in November? I wrote this poem in 1995 and had omitted the key line about poets for fear of offending my father. Now he has been gone 13 years so probably safe to reveal what the poem about. After my father died in 2004 my mother confided to me that he had…
Back to the Future: Off the leash or fishing for words?
My favourite Carver photo on Russian River 1972 As I mentioned in last post the last three years have been difficult…that an understatement. After my Fine Art M.A. I tried to disengage with art school research and politics and reset my compass entirely to reconnect with my writing past. I was lucky enough to be…