first draft

Lament

(poem removed)

My three most wanted books at the moment are:

Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie, a book of essays / meditations about her journeys and exploration of the natural world.

Thin Slice of Moon - the newly published New and Selected poems of Hugh McMillan

Weaving Songs, a collection of poems by Donald S. Murray, the collection was inspired by Murray's father who had been a weaver.

The great thing about the new house is that there will be room for more bookcases!!!

first draft

Poem removed

Series of short poems / fragments

draft work

poem removed

I've been too excited about the house to be able to concentrate on writing poetry so it's all a bit quiet on the poetry front.
I'm using this time as a note-gathering season so that when I've got the head-space to write I'll have plenty of material to draw from.
After lots of false starts we'll be finally getting the keys to our new house this friday.

I've been playing about with my new phone, recorded an old poem on it that I've given up on but quite like the sound of. I'm pleased at the quality of the phone recording, so I think I'll be trying out some more on it.
Here is the poem, if you click on the title you can hear me read it.

High Rise

the Rannoch Moor rises from the fifteenth floor of us
a tree grows out from the concrete side of us
playground swings fly far below us
the turf of raging winds adore us
our hearts are black     the city lights extol us
bodies lie broken     twisted at the foot of us
the bog lanterns of their eyes reflecting us
as we rise on every side    storey upon storey of us

At the top of Blackpool Tower

It's nice to be back home after a busy, blustery week in Blackpool!

It was also nice to come back to a lovely short review of Vintage Sea in the new Northwords Now (p22)

"This poetry is full of confident play with words, deep connections with nature, especially the sea, and vivid images evoking joy and agonising loss."

It looks like a great issue as usual with contributions from Meg Bateman, Hugh McMillan, John Glenday, Rody Gorman, Andrew Greig and many more.

Never had the chance to read any of the poetry collections I took on holiday with me! But we did go up the tower, play on the Pleasure beach, go to Nickelodeon Land, get a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, go to the zoo, see a magic show, watch a 4-D film, walk, walk, walk, and eat, eat, eat....

Things have been a bit manic lately and I'm heading off to Blackpool for a few days now but I thought I would post up this gorgeous picture of The Gantocks that a photographer friend took and kindly added my poem to.