In most moments throughout this collection of poems, John and Mary are meeting – physically or through memory or in their words – though they are hardly together, separated by differing views/experiences, and by presentation on the page.

They do share similarities. Mary ‘can’t talk to everyone’ and ‘even John/doesn’t say much’. And they have a history together, if not tightly together, and the poems display this visually, as well as darkly in the language that mixes everyday companionship – say through dancing – and the struggle of even this,

Everything seems once, a time before. So there was a time when ‘flowers/were for cutting’ and the now or after is ‘not/time for sharing’.

In the reality of dislocation which, as I have said, the poems visually reflect the distances, the poems also reflect beauty/grace through their lyrical expression,

The poems also convey significant drama, at times of despair and defiance, and this is performed palpably for our reading,

I should say that I make this claim to meaning, or at least to mood and impact, but as a reader I am often as uncertain as Mary and John and the uncertain time and world they occupy – so what I sense is an evocation each time, whether in the here and now or their past as we move constantly between these poles [or concurrent realities].

In this fluidity of time and place and feeling, water plays a thematic role through many poems, and a whale might sing a story or rain cascade its confusion.

As we proceed through the poems there are continual references to a history of experience we as readers can all understand, both in terms of its existence and as a backdrop to damaged lives,

In a later poem Mary writes a love letter, and the fragility/instability of goodness in life, past and present, is beautifully conveyed which I mention because the pervading darkness I paint is real but the ‘light’ of love held ‘like sand’ will be ‘counted’ for reassurance in our lives and as in the poem some time we are heroes.

I count this sand in the penultimate poem casting nets for single voices and I commend to you this stylistically distinctive collection of poems where the universality of human relationships is, among many moving impressions, a haunting as well as affirming exploration.

More details and to purchase here.

Ignorance and Want by John Leech for Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

It is 175 years today since the first publication of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, his moral tale exposing Victorian England’s poverty and child poverty in particular, so much a feature of Tory and austerity Britain now, an indictment of political and personal attitudes/behaviour Dickens could not have imagined continuing like this.

Here is a poetic finding from the book’s opening chapter.

Once Upon a Time in Now

In any year of
Christmas and sleet,
paths of life are
not always lit where

snow is more the
intent of rain
and sleet and
pouring of its purpose

to nip
and pelt and
grind to a
bitterer crowding in the

counting-houses
counting the cold
and bleak palpable
brown air and

foggy withal of
mere phantoms
once upon and
in this time.

[*] Here

I am most pleased to have a positive review of my collection Professions by Martin Stannard here today in Stride magazine.

He understands its intended tone with an additional not ‘un-serious’ qualifier that I do like, and this is further expanded on which is how I’d hope other readers would experience and feel about the writing. Thank you to Stride for publishing.

Professions can be purchased at The Red Ceilings Press here.

Six years ago today I got to see Jeff Beck with Joss Stone at Mama Stones in Exeter. It was stunning, obviously, and seeing Beck so close-up [a small venue] was a treat.

The pictures I took that night were, to a shot, terrible in their blurriness. However, these two did seem to capture the far-out-ness of Beck’s playing, so here they are as a colourful, found tribute.

If you’ve never heard of and/or seen a Tom Phillips’ humument, you must. If you’ve never tried to create one yourself, you must. If an English teacher and you’ve never presented to your students and encouraged them to create their own, you must: it’s much more fun than teaching the magic three.

The above is a tribute I produced for a poetry magazine with a theme of ‘persona poems’, though it wasn’t accepted. I used a page from Phillips’ original resource The Human Document, and this can be found here [it just happens to be on page 150 – you can select…].