Winston Plowes

Biography

Based near Hebden Bridge in Calderdale Winston Plowes lives aboard his floating home with his cat ‘Fatty’. In the past year he has collaborated with The Arvon Foundation, the BBC, Glastonbury Festival, UCLAN and Manchester Museum and has recently tutored on courses and workshops for The Square Chapel, The Princes Trust and West Yorkshire Playhouse. As Poet in Residence for the Rochdale Canal Festival in 2012 and The Hebden Bridge Arts Festival for the past three years he has being lucky enough to share his community orientated poetry with a wider audience. As Judge for the Found Poetry Review and author of experimental work published in over 50 journals worldwide he gets the chance to play with our precious language and by providing workshops for schools hopes to continue to inspire through mutual creativity for many years to come. The jointly self published Misery Begins at Home, 2010 and Micro Chap-book Extras, Origami Press, 2014 was followed this year by Telephones, Love Hearts & Jellyfish, Electric Press 2016 Winston is also inventor of the worlds first (and possibly last) Random Poetry Generating Bicycle, the ‘Spoke-n-Word’. www.winstonplowes.co.uk To have a chat about workshops or readings please ring 07986 222678 -------------------------------------------------- PUBLISHED IN Turbulence Magazine / The Best of Manchester Poets / The Big Issue / Words Undone / Chuneedha / Mental Virus / In The Red / The Leeds Debacle / The Ghazal Page / Rainy City Stories / Poetry Space / The Fibonacci Review / Streetcake / LYNX / Verbatim / Monkey Kettle / The Delinquent / Incandescent / Shetland Libraries / Four and Twenty / Ink Sweat and Tears / The Shot Glass Journal / Dog Ear / Jammatology / Hebden Bridge Arts Festival / Rochdale Canal Festival / Hebden Bridge Times / The Black Hole Poetry Anthology / Google Poetics / The Found Poetry Review / Arriveé Magazine / Bad Robot / Tadeeb International / Splinterswerve / experimental-experimental-literature / Sein und Werd / Muse India / Kind of a Hurricane Press / The Gambler / Right Hand Pointing / Postcards, Poetry and Prose / Luciferous / The New Verse News / The Word Machine / The Yorkshire Times / Silver Birch Press / Nonbinary Review / OF ZOOS / JAB Magazine / Zoomoozophone / Your Phone Call / Cahoodaloodaling / The Rain, Party & Disaster Society / VoiceIn / Red Wedge /Commonword / Dreamscape Press / Boktor Magazine / *82 Review / Text Magazine -------------------------------------------------- THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ

Samples

SEGMENTS He came from the age of traction engines, Boy’s Own pages, plain speaking, Yorkshire rigidity and thrift. Since before the war his Condor chug rubbed the room sepia. Rubbed his throat too till Cookridge called and gave him ten years grace. Rubbed his lad till his lungs phlegmed, as the last pick on PE’s ID parade. Hypnotised the cat rolling oranges under tartan slippers’ soles. To the knitting needle clack of mum’s backing track. “Separates pith from t’skin”. He’d say before the last horse croak from a voice lost to the ready-rubbed and half ounce flake. And in these silent years he smiled a lot to compensate and raised a friendly palm to any bus that would stop… That’s Harry in the corner. -------------------------------------------------- M62, J22 You could cut the air with a paper knife And re-open the wounding word. Restrained in a windowed envelope still dying to be heard. Deja vu on the M62, as we passed we didn’t know. That Britain’s highest motorway could make us feel so low. With only hard shoulders to cry on in this day of contra flow tears. As the two of us crossed over Yorkshire both red and white roses appeared. Fog lights reflected our faltering start and the road noise was unrelenting. Constantly more than two chevrons apart… You were never the one for repenting. -------------------------------------------------- HOME SPUN One blue day, you may be blown to an island whose edges were cut by pinking shears. A jigsaw piece adrift on a puzzle of the world. One blue day, you may collide with its people, and blush with wind burnt cheeks. Alive with the life of your fathers buried with their swords. One blue day, you may watch the sun fall in the sea And beg of me one extra wish. That you could breathe underwater and follow it below. One blue day you may come home Christopher – Come home to your Hjaltland -------------------------------------------------- 75 NIGHTS OF BOMBS Searchlights scissor sky. Sirens herd us down the tube. Drowning under bricks… -------------------------------------------------- GHAZAL No love lost around your letters History tightly bound your letters Thistle heads disguised as roses Friendly faces frowned, your letters Dark words piled in a dark corner A forgotten mound, your letters Like the dying amaryllis In my tears, I drowned your letters Echoes rest in empty places A faint distant sound, your letters Inside the drawer without the key Prying fingers found your letters Bitter fruit grows in barren soil Buried underground, your letters Her ship will never dock Winston Words have run aground, your letters All above © Winston Plowes

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Blog entries by Winston Plowes

Loam (29/05/2014)

Preen (17/01/2014)

Bottling (15/05/2013)

digger (22/04/2013)

Never - (07/04/2013)

The Magician Cat (27/01/2013)

Review - Das Auge Im Eis, neogallery32 Bolton (06/12/2012)

fall (18/09/2012)

The Dark Cheeks of KD Lang (12/07/2012)

Camsol (03/07/2012)

Read more entries by Winston Plowes…

Blog link: https://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/winstonplowes