pie, anyone?
And now for something completely different. Make a cup of tea (or whatever you’d usually have with a nice slice of pie) and savour ‘The Poet’s Occasional Alternative‘ by Grace Paley.
Read Morenot just getting there, but there
Drumroll…
shades of blue will be published on the 24th of August!
Unfortunately because of The Current Situation launch events and parties have had to cancelled. I was so looking forward to having a bash, and had booked my friends Peter and Tony for a reunion gig of the Po Lauries. This was the name under which the three of us performed some of my songs-with-new-words-to-the-tune-of-a-well-known-song (there must be a word for that but it escapes me for the moment) in the year I was South Cumbria Poet Laureate. Peter was on keyboards and Tony shared the vocals with me. What larks we had, what larks… Alas, The Comeback Tour will not now be happening until some unforeseeable time in the future when something nearer to Normal Service is resumed for us all. So, until then, please do feel free to share this post and help get the word out.
encouragement
I reckon lots of us are currently in need of encouragement to keep on keeping on. This poem, ‘Wait‘ by Galway Kinnell’, does it for me. I only discovered it recently but it’s already installed itself in my Emergency Lanterns anthology. Scroll down the linked page a bit to hear the poet reading it himself, and find the text underneath.
Read Moretenderness
One of the many weird, sad things about living during this time of pandemic is what it does to how we look on other people: suddenly everyone is threat, or potential threat, and connection is something to be avoided, not sought. I’d like to offer a little antidote to this—a reminder of connection as protection—in the shape of ‘Shoulders‘ by the deeply gifted Naomi Shihab Nye.
Read Moreabove the parapet
Like most people, I imagine, I’ve found it hard to keep going with my usual activities these last few months—including writing, though it’s central to my life both as process and product. There’s just so much energy needed to keep so much stuff at bay; so much effort going into not shouting with rage or terror or sheer frustration (well not in public anyway)… Time, I thought to do some celebrating. Share some good news for a change.
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