So tomorrow is Undiagnosed Children’s Day, for kids with genetic wossnames wrong with them, but of such vanishing rarity that no-one really knows what’s up. At that point we get into frontier science and medicine. Nenna (my daughter, 6) has been submitted, along with thousands of other kids for a country wide study called Deciphering…
“A few years ago I wrote a poem about winter that I recently retrieved from a cupboard…. It is not news, of course, but it says something about what I feel when I look today out of my study window onto the landscape of winter around me. I know that when I go up…
Today’s writing prompt is to construct a poem, each line should have one word starting with the next letter of the alphabet and the the poem should be written for someone or something you care about. I did this on a writing course and we had a time limit of half an hour. The idea was…
FLYING OVER LOCKERBIE YEARS LATER By Chip Tolson Flying over Lockerbie higher than the track Which my small plane flies in summer sky Is where the ticking clock sprang its catch The circuit made the jumbo ripped apart On that bleak December night. Comfortable over harvest fields can we believe It spiralled from altitude to…
I sit here, sandwich in one hand, scalding coffee in the other. I sit watching people and life pass me by in the fading light, my mood languid, drifting, my mind blank, gaze fixed into the middle of nowhere. No one sees me, no one knows me, my fellows pass anonymously, their busy lives a…
EXMOOR NIGHT Dark Exmoor night; see lights shine out from sheds Where panting ewes and standing cows bide time As through the night tired souls get up from beds And go again to watch their stock. Hours chime, They wish themselves asleep some more and yet Seek out first signs of stirring life. They wait…
I run a number of poetry workshops at festivals and I always end by giving the participants a list of writing tips. I thought I’d share these with you: Always have paper and a pen on you for when inspiration strikes. This does not have to be a full blown concept; it could be a…
A fireside poem for a grey, rainy day THROW A LOG ON THE FIRE Logs burn bright in winter, a warming glow secure Amidst the chill and dark, they’ve warmed us times before. Throw a log on the fire, burn another log yet. We felled the dying tree, zounds, how it made us sweat. Fires…
Chip Tolson has kindly let me post the first of a group of his poems TO THE GIRL ON THE BACK OF A BIKE Her chauffeur took her past On the bracket of his bike Which he weaved through the cars Waiting for the lights. She sat upon the bracket With a side-saddled seat As…
Writers Anon - Taunton's Writing Group 