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That’s my brother, Tom

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I found this today in searching for other things from the past!

Written with Rupert Loydell, we reflect on the importance of writers working in schools: he visiting mine on a number of occasions to run always purposeful, productive writing workshops.

Seems to me that little has changed, apart from how now I suspect it is so much more difficult to ‘justify’ paying to have visiting writers. 2004 was hardly a time of creative purpose in those running education from afar, but there was more freedom for those with the will to personally direct some of their focus on what mattered – like creative writing within schools whose curriculums (general, and English in particular) were otherwise geared to testing as well as narrow applications; certainly little celebration of the metaphorical! It’s more complex than this, but anyone bothering to read here will understand.

The final piece from my satirical novel Writing with Hammers will, I trust, speak for its own metaphoric self.

Probably the first ‘grid’ concrete poem I have written – many years ago and prompted by the work of Edwin Morgan

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Many of us will have felt the need to say something – thanks to IT and Rupert for providing my outlet here.

Pleased to have a poem here today at the recently resurrected Stride. My thanks to Rupert who for many years has provided a platform for my writing. Stride‘s return – after a brief break – is now featuring a wide range of poets’ work on a regular, rolling basis.

(image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand)