Learning to Read #22 So mentally, I have this book in one hand and “Our Numbered Days” in the other, and I’m flicking back and forth between them, because the reference point for what I love so much about Neil Hilborn was the first collection, which I reviewed here. And it took me a lot…
Chelping – April 2018
Performance #4 So, after Soapbox at Seven, another new performance poetry night in Leeds. Set in the wonderful Leeds Library and compered by Matt Abbott, this turned out to be a proper treat. I still can’t believe that I’ve lived in Leeds since ’93, and I’ve never been in the Leeds Library. It’s a subscription…
“Dear Body” – Hannah Hodgson
Learning to Read #21 This might be an odd way to start a poetry review, but I’m going to make reference to the Street Fighter console game and Shakespeare here. In Henry V you have the big battle speech. It’s a classic – once more unto the breach and all that. It rouses and inspires…
Strix #3
Learning to Read #20 So, recap one of my previous blogs; Strix is a handcrafted, Leeds based, lush organic looking poetry collection that is now on issue 3. Strix, for me, provokes soap bubbles of different reflections and thoughts, and I’ve listed a few of these below. Poetry is something that needs to be supported….
“Three Poems” – Hannah Sullivan
Learning to Read #19 Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have eroded my attention span to a few minutes at best, so I’ve always been more of a fan of short poems than long poems. I’ve never really thought about what the cut off is, or how the change in length manifests itself in the poem; I’ve…
Three Topical Tanka
Learning to Write #27 Three things happened – Scotland won the Calcutta Cup, The Heavy Falcon flew successfully, and friends of mine won national awards for being awesome women in IT. The diamond tanka, above, is for the latter – inspirational people that I am lucky to know and to work with, who have risen…
Soapbox @ Seven
Performance #3 Some good news! A new poetry night in Leeds, hosted at the Seven Arts Centre in Chapel Allerton, compered by Matt Abbott and put together by the Nymphs and Thugs spoken word record label. I’m finding that there is less poetry in Leeds that I assumed there would be, given that the city…
Valentines Eve Tanka
Learning to Write #26 Two Tuesday Tanka. It’s Shrove Tuesday here in the UK and also Valentines Day Eve, which isn’t really a thing, but made for a nice theme. It’s the hopefulness before the crushing disappointment, the chance to take a chance followed by the inevitable playing it safe. Firstly, to everyone who’s ever…
Rubbish
Learning to Write #27 This is about my morbid fear that my descendants are going to look at what a mess we’ve made of the planet and say something like “what the heck were you doing?” or “what were you thinking would happen when you bought all this crap and then just threw it away”….
Three Tuesday Tanka
Learning to Write #25 Discipline, practice, discipline. That’s what I keep reminding myself of and forgetting about again. So…. this was kind of my day in Tanka. First of all, a cereal disaster! Crossing the granola boundaries and mixing cereal. Like putting rice krispies in your cornflakes packet by accident. No! Then a reminder of…
drb poems 