The Visit, or The Arrival of the Thing

There is a well-known Afrikaans short story Die Gog (The Thing) about an unidentified creature nursed and doted upon by a couple. The thing (die gog) is kept in a box, feed and protected. Eventually the couple’s mutual obsession destroys their relationship. This serves as an imagined prelude to the un-dramatic domestic tragedy of Die

The superhero of pre-used words and melon boy spit pips

In the poem “Summermelon” two characters – the super-hero of pre-used words and Watermelon Boy – spit pips. “Summermelon” was another poem from last year that fitted into the set Emily’s Poems for Modern Boys. You can preview the book here. — T: @BeadedQuill F: BeadedQuill Books by BeadedQuill

Proper Poetry

The beam of a true poem balances when each pan hovers with just right the weight. A real poem contains rhyme; Each line leads us to a prediction. — When I was at junior school, it was the end-of-term duty of the girls in the highest class, Standard 5, to gather news from each year.

A short poem from the wood

They are tall and have green eye-lids. See how they blink at the sun. trees — Being amongst trees makes my soul so happy. There are a number of woods where I live in London and I consider it my commute to work to walk through them when I have time set aside for writing.

104 Poems

The 2×52 project developed in April 2013 when I committed to posting two poems a week for a year. I completed my self-made creative challenge this April when I revealed the 104th poem. Next month (June 2014), all the poems will be available in a book at my Blurb bookstore. In the meantime, here are the 104=2×52 poems listed in all their glory! And for your convenience, so

1,000 Scientific Facts about the Sea, Poet Style

The facts of a beach-walk as seen by a poet.

Rooftop Thoughts

From this time last year: an essay about a painting of Covent Garden rooftops. The image triggered a series of personal memories about school art history lessons and my ‘London Granny’.

On this beach, I wish to see the end of time

I often write to capture moments that I have experienced in solitude. Consider for example the afternoon that produced this poem, “On a rock amongst rocks“. I had walked out beyond the beach of white sand to the rocky inlet beyond the seafront houses, the fishermen and the dog owners. Each day I used this landmark as the half-way point measure

Behind the Brightness: Poems from a Mystical Decade

Shining in Brightness, my first book of selected poems, documents the hopeful years of 18 to 30. I hold a special affection for this creative scrapbook. It is a nostalgic artefact of a time period I declared ‘a mystical decade‘.

I was born of poetry

For World Poetry Day last year I wrote out the fanciful myth I have constructed about how poetry precipitated my birth.