I have been taking advantage of the holiday to catch up on my reading. ‘Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis is about the last five years of Edward Thomas’ life and the time in which he wrote all his poetry. It is perfect reading material for the quiet time between Christmas and…
Remembering Louis Doffman 29th September 1918 and Percy Honeybill 2nd September 1918
Two of the poems from my forthcoming collection, Voices from Stone and Bronze, have been published on London Grip for the winter. The first poem, What Louis Doffman knows, is in memory of a young man, Louis, who fought under an assumed name. I was introduced to his story by Jeremy Banning who took me…
The Reading list – Robin Houghton, Charles Bennett and Liz Lefroy
These are a few of the books I bought earlier this autumn at Free Verse and the Cinnamon tenth birthday celebrations. I’m following the example set by Robin Houghton on her blog of reading from first poem to last poem so it seemed appropriate to start with her pamphlet The Great Vowel Shift published by…
Tenth Birthday Celebrations
I spent yesterday in Northampton in the company of fellow writers and readers for the tenth Birthday celebrations for Cinnamon Press which was founded by the industrious and inspiring Jan Fortune in 2005. In her usual generous spirit the weekend’s events were shared with other independent presses Fair Acre Press, Grey Hen Press and local…
Not lost in translation – a handkerchief kiss
One of the highlights of the Free Verse fair in London was the chance to take part in a translation workshop led by Karen Leeder of New College, Oxford. I did study French, German and Russian at school and Welsh with the Open University so this workshop looked interesting, even if my language skills are…
From cover to cover
Over the summer I have been enjoying reading the series of blog posts The reading list by poetgalRobin Houghton. She set herself the target of reading poetry collections from cover to cover, starting with the first poem and keeping going without skipping, hesitating or going back to re-read poems. She has just completed week 6 and…
Can poetry save your life?
I am coming to the end of what has turned out to be an extended period away from work, due to difficulties in my current post. As things were becoming completely untenable at work I discovered Anthony Wilson’s Lifesaving poems. This anthology is of the poems he feels most passionately about. Each poem is accompanied…
End of term The Poetry Cafe from LondonTown.com It feels like there is a school’s out atmosphere this week with children being let loose for the summer. Yesterday evening I went to the last session of advanced poetry workshops with Katy Evans-Bush. These are held in a room above the poetry café in Covent Garden…
August Poetry Postcard Fest
There is less than a day to go before registration opens for this August’s Poetry postcard fest. This involves poets from around the world sending a poetry postcard a day to other poets. It’s been happening since 2007 and I discovered it last year and took part for the first time. I wrote about my…
Victor’s Family
Robert Victor Davies – 10th June 1897 – 31st July 1917 Victor was born at 10 Clonmel Street, Llandudno on 10th June 1897, the second child in the family. His sister, Mary Eleanor was two years older. His father, Robert Samuel worked as a printer and his mother Mary Grace (nee Pritchard) was from Amlwch.…