midwinter

My little hyacinth midwinter poem has crept its way into the winter edition of Poems in the Waiting Room in the illustrious company of John Clare, Emily Bronte, W B Yeats and Rowan Williams. Nice! Out soon.www.pomesinthewaitingroom.org.

marking marking

marking marking marking
oh dear students
as I travel at speed
through your differing worlds
perspectives snag
at odds and I
am wrenched
by seasickness

birds in urban venues

Thursday 13 December

and suddenly I have a poetry gig: Monday 14 January at the Beehive Poets, Bradford http://www.beehivepoets.org.uk/whatson.htm. It seems a bit of an urban venue for visual bird poems and the vegetable haiku, but that is what it is going to get.

last teaching week this semester. I have at last caught the obligatory sniffles, but do not intend to miss the parties if i can help it...... after all, don't be ill in your own time advises an incredible edible friend i meet on the train.

plans for the new year include hosting the first radish (radical poetry network gig) to include short and very very funny play on redundancy and various poets I rate performing on the theme of unheard voices with a distinctly salford bias.

incredible laureate

Tuesday 4 December
long long long long day, starting with completely cracking open my data stick at about 3 am.. (!)  on which practically everything I value writing-wise is held... never mind, I didn't panic and managed to salvage it all and now, having finally crawled home at the end of the day, discover it is official, or as official as it will ever be, that I am the 'incredible poet laureate': http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk/pictures

Crows and Butternut

Monday 3 December 2012
Who says dark days and freezing views aren't inspirational: after completing my first visual bird poem that has been led by the bird rather than me yesterday (courtesy of a suggestion by a fellow poet/student, Jonathan Mamczynski, and a rather obdurate crow), I have now written a first vegetable poem for Incredible Edible Todmorden. They asked for brussels but these're proving even more obdurate than that crow, and need further cooking, so it is on the butternut and will be on their website soon I am told http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk. This is going to be a big job as they want a haiku for each vegetable bed in the town... I've also been offered the beautiful methodist church for a poetry gig, so am thinking on this.