#happybirthdayalanginsberg Author of the great long poem in Welsh, 'Hwyl'.
This was first commissioned for the anthology 'A Conversation Piece: Poetry and Art' edited by Adrian Rice and Angela Reid. It's a bit mad because that's how I reacted to the given image, as to so many things in truth.
Happy World Swift Day! It was realising I couldn't hear them that led to me getting my ears tested and the hearing aids I celebrate in this poem, as well as the birds. of course.
The Emperor of Ice Cream is a fickle monarch
Happy Birthday Margaret Drabble! She came to a reading I was a part of once and we chatted after. She asked about my name and I replied with a vague apology for its complexity due to its Irish origin. She responded, "Well, at least your surname isn't a word for prostitute!"
Photo: Murdo Macleod
Feel I might be about to have an idea for a new poem
cartoon : Miroslav Barták
What do we want?
The 'Ulysses' cat!
When do we want it?
Mrkgnao!
I tried to explain how Paul Muldoon’s long poem Yarrow (1994) recycles the same 90 rhyme sounds over more than 1000 lines, before using them all again in a single final poem, and why this is moving
Anniversary card from Jane Duhig
A crinkle crankle wall in Branfield, Suffolk, possibly originating with Dutch engineers draining the fens as they have greater resistance to lateral forces.
It is also true that poems running in a straight line from beginning to end are weaker than those that twist and turn.