If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.👍
Comment is about Palace (blog)
Original item by Ankita Srivastava
Reaching for the stars in the year of the rabbit.
🎇
Comment is about WE KNOCKED THE BASTARD OFF (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Keep up the good work Stephen.
You are fast becoming the number one in this genre.
Comment is about Fortunes of War (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Wow. Sends shivers down my back, Holden. Crackles with tension 😎
Comment is about Soothsayer. (blog)
Original item by Holden Moncrieff
Deep into right wing territory
It's a wonder you didn't get lynched
Don't stop to ask directions
Unless you want your jam jar pinched
Just like Brexit it'd be daylight robbery
With a sprinkling of political snobbery
Comment is about Clacton (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Thanks for your comments, Keith, Uilleam, and Graham. I feel I ought to mention that this poem can be found in my collection Marples Must Go!, which charts our recent troubled times. Endorsed by, among others, Brian Bilston.
Comment is about Clacton (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Stunning, Stephen, in both content and delivery. Stunning 😔
Comment is about Fortunes of War (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Enjoyed this Mike. I think we've all been there at some point. We all need to exorcise a mean one from time to time,
Comment is about A Mean One (blog)
Original item by Mike McPeek
This poem reminds me of why I was drawn to WoL all those years ago. Harry certainly knew how to turn a phrase and his mastery of scansion was second to none. I miss his thoughtfulness and his astute intelligence. John
Comment is about Mea Culpa (blog)
Original item by Harry O`N eill
Fashion? Consider the context to refer to a particular style
confined to a particular mental/political attitude without the broader benefit of good humour.
Comment is about Bread and Roses for All (re-post with open letter to Labour NEC) (blog)
YRP - your most recent stricture noted. No comment.
Comment is about HOPE AWAY FROM HOME (blog)
Original item by Your Royal Poetess
Summer nights Poynton Arts
Vocal verse creative words
Festival lovers please call
Snap Tin wellcomes you.😀
Comment is about Stockport Write Out Loud to host open-mic night at arts festival (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Reminds me of 'Stop all the Clocks' by Auden. It is SO good, Tom. Majestic in its sweep (one could reconstruct North London using this poem) whilst conveying inner despair.
One of the best poems I have this year. Congratulations.
Comment is about Day Off (blog)
Original item by Tom Harding
Gorgeous. Full of depth, wisdom and spirit. You keep knocking these epics out, Clare. So profound 😎
Don't stop! I, for one, am seeking to learn from your skill 😊
Comment is about Ode to Love. (blog)
Original item by Clare
Clacton! Went there for a day once. It’s never tempted me back.
I do remember really good fish and chips, eaten inside because it was raining!
A nice glimpse of pre-Brexit Britain, gone forever.
Comment is about Clacton (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
This gave me the chills. Firstly, because it is a great poem and secondly I am currently writing an almost identical piece!! I guess I will have to go back to the drawing board after reading this!🤣. Fab poem.
Comment is about Day Off (blog)
Original item by Tom Harding
Thanks Greg.
Some of us think we had nowt in them days;
it's 2023 and at a school in Luton 40% of pupils are on free school meals.
The number of children in poverty rose following austerity policies, to 4.2 million by last year, caused by benefit cuts stripping £37bn mostly from families with children.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/22/george-osborne-austerity-children-covid-inquiry
Comment is about Clacton (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Horrifically I have thought for a long time we are gradually becoming the next new state of the USA. My granddaughter terms me a guy! Asks for candy and watches families of gobby loud yank families on YouTube making a buck from her patronage. I’m keeping the drawbridge tightly shut. Hell yeh!
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
A journey rich in descriptive quality. I loved every line and shall read it again. I am not often drawn to long poems but this is the exception. Tom you have used your innate imagination to observe the intricacies of life in the street and combined them with emotions. An excellent piece of writing.
Thank you indeed for this,
Keith
Comment is about Day Off (blog)
Original item by Tom Harding
Thanks for that John; thought I might be out on a limb with this one-a lot of sensitive souls out there!😉
Comment is about Souvenir Larkinesque de la Rive Gauche (et de l’Aile Gauche-seulement avec la permission des flics) (blog)
I've had a word with our local village Bobby, and with the Electoral Commission, and they agree that seeing as how we fought at least one World War for freedom, we're allowed to talk about politics in poetry.
Comment is about Bread and Roses for All (re-post with open letter to Labour NEC) (blog)
Thanks all for your comments and likes.
Yes Keith. Sunak: "This government will have integrity, professionalism, and accountability at every level."
Yeah right!
Comment is about Bread and Roses for All (blog)
Recent decades will be seen as a time of turbulence in the nation's history. I am very concerned as to where it will all end. This poem provides a glimpse of a country in transition, tinged with nostalgia and a strain of truth.
Thank you for this,
Keith
Comment is about Clacton (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Remarkable poem, Tom. Thank you for sharing it here.
Comment is about Day Off (blog)
Original item by Tom Harding
When I see "entertainment" ads on TV such as love island etc, I despair at the empty headedness of it all.
Do our young lads -and our girls- actually aspire to live up to that kind of society? If they do, I think that goes a long way to explaining some the problems they have to deal with.
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Stephen, your adopted theme of war poetry grows more into the realities of war and its consequences. As we sit far away from the conflict we need these poems to jolt us out of our complacency into a world where tragedy is an everyday occurrence. I pray that you will be inspired to write more such poems as they contribute to the overall war effort. Bless you for this,
Thanks
Keith
Comment is about Fortunes of War (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Stephen, this fabulous poem should be renamed "In Defence of Verse". One of your very best and one which will make fellow poets think about verse and its modern replacement. Verse will remain a dominant feature in poetry despite various trends. I often wonder where we draw the line between no verse and prose. I tend to use both but retain a strong preference for the use of verse. Your poetry is of the highest standard and many on WOL will take heed to these words.
Thank you indeed for this,
Keith
Comment is about Rhyming Rant! (blog)
Original item by Stephen W Atkinson
Dedicated to the BBC Question Time audience at Clacton last night. Written in 2016 in Clacton, a week before the referendum, and a few hours before the murder of Jo Cox. Lest we forget.
Comment is about Clacton (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Perhaps many young men these days feels as earmarked for death as the men Wilfred Owen saw head to the front in the first world war. It is up to those in power to provide them with a future, surely. A modern 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', indeed.
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
'Where latent talents take root and research is initiated': many fine writers have ascribed their beginnings to finding sanctuary and inspiration in their local library, as you say, Keith. I bunked off school in the sixth form to read poetry there, although I don't cite that as particularly exemplary. Amazingly, we have a poetry library in Morpeth, our nearest big town in Northumberland, which boasts the grand title of 'Northern Poetry Library'.
Comment is about A Library (blog)
Original item by keith jeffries
You fight on, Steve. And well done for doing so. Thank you for making us face this continuing reality in Ukraine with another almost unbearable poem. You deserve a poetry medal.
Comment is about Fortunes of War (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
This is great, Stephen, and would go down great guns at any open-mic, if you haven't delivered it already somewhere. There's nothing wrong with rhyme! But you're right, there is a lot of poetic snobbery around, in certain quarters. And while some people can only write poems that rhyme - and lots of people out there who aren't that interested in 'poetry' only recognise 'poems' that rhyme - others cannot write rhyming poems to save their lives. I'm one of them. There's no right or wrong. Poetry appreciation is subjective. As far as I'm concerned, rhyme or non-rhyme, the trick is choosing the 'right' words. Ah, but which ones are they? There's the rub ...
Comment is about Rhyming Rant! (blog)
Original item by Stephen W Atkinson
Brilliant Stephen.
I think as animals, we are hard-wired to perceive patterns in some form or another-as part of our survival mechanism?
So dhown whith phoetry shnobbery!
A rhant whith rhyme ‘n rhythm in thyme
saves nhyne fhurther on dhown the lhine!
Comment is about Rhyming Rant! (blog)
Original item by Stephen W Atkinson
A rich observation in much more than words! sadly deemed no longer relevant to a know it all generation.
Comment is about A Library (blog)
Original item by keith jeffries
You highlight this issue in a superbly written poem, John. One of the best I have read for a long time.
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Like Uilleam, as a boy I relied greatly on our local library, which was a key point in the community.
A pleasure to read this, Keith.
Comment is about A Library (blog)
Original item by keith jeffries
Thanks Clare.
I've been retired for a long time now and I miss my pals.
But we old timers who spend a lot of time in the pub-we talk about stuff-if it's only passing the time of day - how's your leg? how's the missus?
Do young men these days benefit from that kind of interaction?
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Thanks Jordyn.
There's a mental health advert doing the rounds here which goes: "it's ok not to be ok".
Looking at most of the adverts on TV, full of dancing, prancing grinning idiots, who look as if they've overdosed on something,
one might be forgiven for thinking that we need to be like them...all ok, fine and dandy, with our whiter than white toothy smiles.
That's not real life-that's insanity.
Real life has it's ups and downs and it is ok not to be ok!
👍
Comment is about change. (blog)
Original item by Jordyn Elizabeth
Thank you Keith.
When I was about 8 or 9, I became a member of a library near my school.
My love of reading grew, and fired my imagination so much that I'd go to the library on the way to school, read a book under the desk in class, sometimes getting it confiscated.
I'd take it home and finish it, then exchange it the following morning, and so on.
Public libraries have been a catalyst of great beneficial change in my life regardin music literature and travel...but hey, who needs them eh---bloody socialist nonsense!
Comment is about A Library (blog)
Original item by keith jeffries
A poem with the raw truth of an appalling situation. Money and modernity; may I had futility and a lack of genuine love and care. These guys are in a category more vulnerable than those who sacrificed their lives in the world wars, because any meaning in life has gone. Purposefulness has passed them by. I'm afraid I see little hope on the horizon.
John, this poem has raised an issue which we turn away from but needs to be urgently addressed.
Thanks,
Keith
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Clare, a whirlwind of a poem which had me sitting on the edge of my chair. It gathers a momentum of its own; the quality of a good writer. This poem I really loved. Polished verse at its best.
Thanks
Keith
Comment is about Ode to Love. (blog)
Original item by Clare
Uilleam, suicide amongst young males has been disproportionate for a very long time. I don’t suppose the current climate is doing anything to help the situation. It’s a very sad state of affairs. 😢
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Thank you John for bringing this sad state of affairs to our attention.
Is there something about our society which makes these tradgedies as numerous as they are?
With the current depletion of mental health services ( EG. children in crisis being held in police cells instead of receiving care from the appropriate services) the situation isn't going to ammeliorate any time soon.
💓
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
You stay true to form. Your poetry is powerful and always demands the reader to reflect. I greatly admire your work and how you never shy away from the important issues. Thank you for this.
Comment is about Anthem for all all these damned Youngsters (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Any comments against asylum seekers and refugees are not welcome here.
So please do not feel free to express such opinions.
Comment is about HOPE AWAY FROM HOME (blog)
Original item by Your Royal Poetess
Thanks Stephen. My childhood was similarly benign. I exaggerate for poetic affect haha. The sectarian aspect is correct, though trouble free. I was a Catholic dog, as opposed to a Protestant pig! Shameful, looking back!
Did school prepare us for the battles of life is, I suppose, the question the poem poses. Cheers, Stephen 😊
Comment is about The March (blog)
Original item by John Botterill
I enjoyed this poem as I suppose the thought of death, the time and place we ponder. It is not the venue which I think about, it is how. I would prefer to go in a blinding flash, barely conscious of what was taking place.
Thank you for this,
Keith
Comment is about When (blog)
Original item by Andy Millican
kJ Walker
Sat 24th Jun 2023 08:52
As a kid I was regularly turfed out of the local library, for being too dirty.
They'd send me home to wash my hands, but as we had no hot water in the house, and as the muck was so ingrained I rarely passed inspection.
I think libraries are a fantastic institution, but my memory of them as a child is slightly marred.
Comment is about A Library (blog)
Original item by keith jeffries