Prophetically speaking I suppose the earth in the wider scheme of things is merely a grain of sand on the beach of some incomprehensible island.

I always enjoy reading this type of poem because it helps me to realise how insignificant we are - mankind has applied his deeper thoughts to these issues since time immemorial. And will until the end of time I guess.

Thanks Noetic, I enjoyed this.

Comment is about Tightrope (blog)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

Hello Greg, many thanks for commenting on 'Evening' and congratulations on your recent poetry recognition.

Comment is about Greg Freeman (poet profile)

Original item by Greg Freeman

A Big Thank You to Mr Dave Gilbey..A Wonderful bass Singer...Dave is a great singer and would grace any event and as one poet said to me' his voice raised the hairs on the back of my neck'....

Thanks a lot Dave and an ex -rugby No2 shirt wearer - the same as me!

Graham Robinson - Poets Corner

Comment is about Poet's Corner @ Hoylake (October 2011) (photo)

Hello Charlotte. I agree with Scott there is indeed a lot going on in your poems. There seems to be a busyness in them, more than is spoken by the words alone. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

By the way, I like Sylvia Plath but not in the usual way as I find her work very hard to digest. I don't understand what she is saying at all. Which is strange as I'm an ardent fan of both her husband and daughter.

Comment is about Charlotte Henson (poet profile)

Original item by Charlotte Henson

Chris Coey (seen above as Guest Poet at 'Poets Corner')
on the 18th October 2011...
A Muti-Award winning Poet!
Am proud to call him my friend and thank you Chris for a great job at the opening night at 'Glassfire'....
you are welcome back as you would grace the stage at any event!

Thank You - Graham Robinson -
Poets Corner at Glassfire..a great night 3rd Tues in the month!

Comment is about Chris Coey, Poet's Corner @ Hoylake (October 2011) (photo)

David Costello (above) joint winner at 'Poets Corner'
David also co-hosts both The Liver Bards and New Brighton Bards with Steve Regan.
He gives a touch of 'poetic class to any event'

You are welcome back any time David -

Graham Robinson
Poets Corner.

Comment is about David Costello, Poet's Corner @ Hoylake (October 2011) (photo)

Intriguing piece.
Who is feeding off who? I need to call the window cleaner and then still won't see the point.

Comment is about you and us (blog)

This is really good, Michael, I enjoyed.

Comment is about Tightrope (blog)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

Good to see you back Michael with some thought provoking poetry, you read them really well. Do you still have the Harlequin, I would love to hear it again if you wouldn't mind reposting it? Thanks, Lynn xx

Comment is about Noetic-fret! (poet profile)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

Wow! I really enjoyed this, Chris, so well done.

Comment is about Shells - With The Hardest Of Hearts (CB Bootleg Version) (blog)

Love it, John! I saw the title under recent comments and just knew it had to be yours! (Perhaps the bloke's broke back brake block should join Ken Dodd's Dad's dead dog??!!)

Comment is about A Bloke's Back Brake Block Broke (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Ok folks :)

Because I appreciate all the positive replies that this write has given me I feel I just have to say something about it..I feel as a fraud might do because when thinking about this and it did take me some time to finish, I never for one moment gave thought that it may be read on a more personal level..and to me that is so very shallow..I have no idea why I did not give thought to others interpretations, so when I read such replies I feel a bit small, (wish it was slim) for it appears far more clever than it actually is...anyways felt I had to say that.. :)

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

Isobel...ta for the great comments on my Hitler poem..I have changed that expendable drasticly to requisite and it holds far more punch...now to a confession...I am going to shove it up on my blog, mainly because I do not feel the poem deserves such praise from a well respected poetess as yourself :)

Comment is about Isobel (poet profile)

Original item by Isobel

p.s. I doubt the wife would have been expendable. People like that feed off control and they need someone weaker than themselves to do that.

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

Brilliant poem Stella. I'm glad it's not biographical for you. Living with Hitler would be the most soul breaking thing imaginable.

There is so much to like in here. The fact that you only really have a glimpse of the wife. That lovely line about ash falling like snow and all the grey, disturbing connotations that brings with it, mentally and pyhysically. I liked the bit about the sheets too - you wouldn't think it possible to get humour in a poem of this nature but when you put the control freak in a domestic environment, it's there. Only funny to those on the outside though.

I loved this. x

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

oi! where's my picture? :P

Comment is about Gemma at Middleton WOL 2011 (photo)

Hi Stella, thank God indeed. I should have grabbed a recent book which takes us through the final stages of the war - although I do know of at least one other person I work with who used a similar title as a metaphor for a personal experience.

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

I enjoyed this john.

Comment is about A Bloke's Back Brake Block Broke (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

wow stella. this is fantastic. i am so in awe of your cleverness with words, idea and your ability to put them together with the style of an experienced and gifted writer.you have handled the task impeccably, great idea. i am dead chuffed that weve met.


ps i also think you should do batman....i will do dennis the menace's cat...are we on?

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

Lots in this, Ray: "by the time I get to Droitwich", love that line. The mention of Longbridge gives a sense of industrial decay and dereliction, something lost; and I suppose I'm bound to appreciate the lines "from the mirror, to the sun, to the star, then outer darkness". Nowhere else to go! All in all, quite a journey.

Comment is about Mayday (blog)

I've listened to Roy Harper for as long as you, Julian. It's the songs that mean summat to you personally that stick, not crap about hating the white man. I'd much rather listen to When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease and I'm no great fan of cricket. Or the love songs. Quite simply, they are better.
When I saw him at Birmingham Town Hall in the early 70's he claimed he was dying of some sheep-related disease. He's not even Welsh, the lying bastard!

Comment is about Roy Harper and the politics of poetry (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Dunno if it is good, really. I like the rhythm and most of the phrasing but the story, "the narrative arc" could be much, much better.

Comment is about Mayday (blog)

Not quite sure what the first verse is doing but I like the rest.The 2nd verse is really good, though I don't think you need a comma after views.
This line lets the rest down, I think

excited by flames this man with a match,

different tone, rhyming with ash when it shouldn't etc.

I wrote a What if... poem about Hitler once. Gets you into all sorts of trouble.

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

Nice one Stella,
Manages to be political and (humanly) poetical.

(I presume mrs Bermans there as Jewish?)

I still can`t explain to myself why the snow in the yard (even coming after the fire, the flames, and the match) seems so exactly right for the poem.

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

Philipos, many thanks for that comment I will say thanks on your blog too..just to clarify that it isn't biographical (thank goodness)..I just had a thought...if Hitler had been married early on..so I set myself a task.. I foolishly believed the write would be easy..believe me, it wasn't...I think that perhaps I shall write about being batmans girlfriend next.

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

One can only hope this move retains the poetic integrity of his EuroStar commercial.

Maybe he can show his arse in the book, better yet we could have editorial forewords beginning with F.

Comment is about Larkin, Heaney - and Jarvis Cocker at Faber (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Blog from Rachel on Inky’s October Open Mic. And it was our first anniversary too.

'Make Meanings Collide/Cause These Words Are FREE…’

Inky is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!

Following the mania that was the August Mini-Fest, Inky Fingers took some much needed zzz’s in September. We had discussed using our massive salary bonuses to fly our tired selves to Cuba for the next planning meeting, but it turns out Doctor’s works just as well. Maybe next year.

So – new start. New venue. Following the – unhappy but watchthisspace temporary – closure of our beloved Forest Cafe, Inky is currently holding its monthly Open Mic from The Third Door (formerly Medina’s). And it felt good to be up and running again.

As the title quote from the luminous Anita Govan says, Inky is all about making words free: both in the fact that we don’t charge one bad penny for you to come and say them, to enjoy them, to roll around in them and in the ethos that keeps Inky’s backbone straight. That it’s about providing a stage for anyone, everyone to get up, stand up and speak out, whether you’ve been proclaiming all your life or you’ve never spoken in front of more than 2 people and your cat before.

The mood was frisky, with politics, revolution, love, Zippos, sex and call centres all cropping up. Electric glamour brought by feature performer Paula Varjak, Berlin resident, currently on tour round the UK. Doomed to keep dating artists, being a commodity as the ‘hot black chick’, the difference between ex pats and migrants, lost for a last word in a raver oceans, and the danger of hedonism destruct spiral when you went out for just one coffee…it was rich, funny, sexy, consummate.

And a wealth of Open Mic-ers, some old faces with properly haunting new material – Alec Beattie with two crows and a fedora, that means you – and many new; aces to see againg StAnza finalist Stewart Hogg, spitting out about the mental tsunami of ADHD; David Greaves, with an intensely beautiful, dizzying piece featuring plane times, instructions, quizzes and a labyrinth of galleons; Robbie Shippan with rebellion, if not quite revolution, in call centres in Leith; Stewart Learmouth all tender with colour; new literary night Soapbox’s Rosie Brown with when it all goes right; and the wonderful ‘physiqueofamalnourishedfairy’ (he said it first and he’s beautiful to boot) Jamie Livingstone warm with the blether and the ism-less boys.

And a massive huzzah to Amber Kennedy for standing on a stage for the FIRST TIME EVER and making me cry about stories of lost loves.

And more. It’s good to be back.

See you soon,

xx

PS: We also got the headsup on a brilliant new writing project for anyone who wants the monthly challenge of seeing if a picture really does paint 1000 words. Check out the ‘Pictonaut Challenge’ at http://rogueverbumancer.com for more details.

Review is about Inky Fingers Open Mic:Year Two on 25 Oct 2011 (event)

Repeat Johns words on this. and am fond of 'poems of place' We all need somewhere like The Mewstone.

Comment is about DOWN BY THE MEWSTONE (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Review is about Inky Fingers Open Mic:Year Two on 25 Oct 2011 (event)

A lot going on here chuck, a baring of the soul some might think and more than a hint of darkness all of which you manage to contain in 4 brief stanzas.

I found this quite powerful and hope that in the writing of it there was an element of therapy if centred around a biographical experience.

I'm surprised at the lack of other comments given the menace implied in this poem and the compelling title which certainly drew my eye. Well done you.

Comment is about At Home With Adolf (blog)

A thumbs up for this one Lynn - thanks for sharing the great news.

Comment is about Daughter (II) (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Hello, Steve. I was just about to ask what do you mean, me and my bus journeys, then I remembered!What does make a poem political!?Interesting what you say about the rhythm. I'm too close to it, I suppose.

Comment is about Mayday (blog)

Well, Jarvis is a good bloke, I think. Who can forget him kicking Michael Jackson up the arse?I'd be worried about fitting the Faber sensibility, though, if I were him. On which point, there are some cracking "pop lyricists", Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, for one. And if you're a young chap, with the choice of being Andrew Motion or shagging Alexa Chung, what are you gonna do?

Comment is about Larkin, Heaney - and Jarvis Cocker at Faber (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

How very interesting. When I submitted my idea
of a collection of verse and lyrics ( based on
my 2006 collection of original verse and lyrics "Singing Words"), as an ORIGINAL CONCEPT that was unknown and untried at that time, I was rejected in short order by Faber.
But it's nice to know my pioneering
concept (already put in book format at my own expense) was thought OK for and by Mr Cocker
et al.
I'm no fan of modern "pop lyrics" as I believe
they are of questionable merit without the music tracks that cover their inadequacies and invariably subjugate them to "second best" on any modern pop record, whereas the songwriters
before shared equal billing as they "told a story", often in 3mins; unless you're talking Rockn'Roll - and even those, however basic, had
something we could usually sing along to.
Good luck though to Mr Cocker. For my part, I
will leave it at that.
M.C. Newberry

Comment is about Larkin, Heaney - and Jarvis Cocker at Faber (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

This read beautifully at the Tudor and it reads equally well on the page.

The attraction and simplicity of colours combined with clear and stark representative images of the wider landscape and history California.

The passion and compassion are palpable in equal measure and what is said feels grounded and real.

A great roadtrip of a poem.

My Best

Chris

Comment is about Colours of California (blog)

Original item by Dave Bradley

Thanks, Isobel and Dave.
Funnily enough, I sound like a polystyrene cup with green paint in it too. Uncanny, isn't it?

Comment is about Summat and Nuffin (blog)

Should be a really good night :)

As for staying on and drinking...not sure as yet. It depends on a few things- hopefully lol.

Comment is about 'ThePoetry Spoke' Open mic! Guest Poet- Wols own Dave Bradley! - £20 prize up for grabs! (blog)

I've emailed you about the change to "Two Giggling Girls" - a result of your comment on an "awkward" line.
Thanks.

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

What is "up and down" but "bobbing" - so I have
gone with the constructive criticism after all.

Comment is about TWO GIGGLING GIRLS (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

I appreciate the kindness. I think the form used stems from my love of music and the rhythm
of lyrics. My late eldest sister (she married a US officer wounded around D-Day plus 7) and
spent the rest of her life in the USA) served at the gun emplacements and that spot has a personal resonance for me, besides being in a
beautiful setting on the SW Peninsula Path now. See your messages for a response to one of
your previous comments. Thanks.

Comment is about DOWN BY THE MEWSTONE (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Hmmm.This poem is like a strong voice singing in a place of worship.I like it. Reminds me of "Braided Lives" , a novel by Margey Piercy. (an american)
Steve Smith

Comment is about kiss me with your mouth (blog)

Thank you, John :)

Comment is about Daughter (II) (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Thanks for your kind comments, Stef. So pleased that Tricia was able to get you back on the straight and narrow. I'm just relieved I never took that route in the 60's, not sure I would have been so strong as our daughter in getting clean.

Comment is about Daughter (II) (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Top bombin', MC. Particularly like the uplift of the final verse. (Too much to comment on in that verse alone, but "soars and draws my spirit higher" - exceptional). You can tell a good 'un.
I notice you use the form quite a lot - is it a favourite?

Comment is about DOWN BY THE MEWSTONE (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Thank you for your kind words, Stella. There was nothing else I could do, she was still my daughter, but I agree she had a great strength of character to get clean. Thanks again. xxx

Comment is about Daughter (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Very enjoyable, Foxy.
On the serious side, is there anything our kids could do which would stop us loving them? stealing, killing? Probably not. The one thing that occurs to me is Breaking Trust.

Comment is about pride and joy (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

wow dude honestly i respect and love your work...big ups to you .... you are an inspiration kumina

Comment is about Emmanuel Sairosi (poet profile)

Original item by Emmanuel Sairosi

doing it twice is very funny....lmfao (000)

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

Wow!

Comment is about Daughter (II) (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

You are a prodigious young talent!! I look forward to hearing/seeing you perform again
around Manchester.

This poem is deep and profound; some wonderful imagery too.

Comment is about Something is Coming (blog)

Original item by Charlotte Henson