I'm very happy to have two poems in the latest issue of The Manchester Review.
My poem 'Glasgow Nights' was written about my journey to work last year when I was working night-shifts in a homelessness unit. My other poem 'Written on Board MV Coruisk' is another commute poem - the short ferry ride from Dunoon to Gourock is usually part of my travels several times a week. Though I can hardly believe I've not been on the ferry for nearly five months now!
You can read my poems online here.

For anyone interested in acceptance / rejection stats - both of these poems were rejected three times by other mags/journals.

I've kept a record of every poetry submission, acceptance, rejection I've ever sent - my records date back to 2006! I've had 117 rejections - not individual poems but full submission rejections which often contain several poems.
My first acceptance came in 2008 - so two years after I started submitting. I've had 67 acceptances, again, not individual poems but often more than one in a submission.

I'm also starting to record rough reply times by mags/journals so I can better gauge how long I want a poem/poems potentially unavailable for.

Back to work this week which represents the official end of lockdown for me. It's life out there but not as we know it!

Over the last few weeks I've been playing around with the draft of my third poetry collection. I'm really not that many poems off a full and complete collection.

I've split the collection into three sections that they seemed to fall into quite naturally. My first book was split into four sections and, in hindsight, I think that was too many! I didn't have any sections in Madame Ecosse and I think I prefer to have a book in sections. Plus each section has its own title page and the option of adding a quotation which I quite like to have. 

Again, 'nature' is the major theme, backdrop and also active ingredient running through my poems regardless of what else they are about.

So far I'm thinking of using this quote from Thoreau for the first section: "As a man studies the details of nature he discovers himself". A quote from Francis James Child for my ballad section: "True popular ballads are the spontaneous products of nature". And a verse from Wordsworth for my third section that links to a poem I have in that section.

Anyway this is all very much at the thinking and early days planning stage but I'm excited to see the manuscript coming together in what feels like a satisfyingly cohesive manner.

I have a couple of poems coming out in the next issue of The Manchester Review and one in the next issue of The London Grip. I'll be working on trying to get as many poems from my manuscript published as possible.