About

Welcome!

This website includes seven original books of poetry and one play. All are available to read or download for free.  I hope that you enjoy them.

Why free?

I have been the recipient of a number of acts of kindness and undeserved luck along the way. I hope this website goes some way to repaying that good fortune. It now seems to be the norm to try to ‘monetise’ material. I have no problem with that, people have to earn a living. However, I have always written poetry for the joy of it.  I don’t rely on poetry for income (luckily) and it’s nice to be able to spread the word. Hence, I am not selling anything on the website, nor will you see any paid advertisements. All content can be read for free.

Context is everything

I usually write poems within a specific context and all the books are structured around a theme. You will find notes relating to this on the individual book pages. Regarding context more generally, I wanted to present all eight books together to represent a complete body of work.

I suppose I am not a typical poet (if such a thing exists). My background is in science. I am not interested in literary pyrotechnics and attempt to use simple words in everyday use whenever possible. I don’t know where the quote first originated, but to use small words magically has been a guiding principle. Similarly, I will always jettison perfect grammar in favour of language as it is commonly spoken.

I write poems that I want to read. There. I said it. The poetry police are on the way.

Perceptions of poetry

Poetry can be perceived as being elitist and intellectual, which is a shame. I dislike covers of poetry books which are obviously aspiring to that ideal, which rarely have anything to do with the content. Rather, I look towards the album covers of my youth which seemed to be part of, and even augment, the creative product. With that in mind, I have enjoyed designing the covers for my books. I hope they compliment the content.

There can also be a perception that poetry needs to be somehow profound. I fall well short of that aspiration and write about anything. I am reduced to describing two magpies roaming my street in a poem called Slow Saturday (in The London Plane).

Some final thoughts

I believe all creative art involves some degree of personal testimony and the crafted communication of that vision. If you don’t understand a poem, it’s the poet’s fault not yours. Oops. The poetry police are knocking on the door now. And they sound angry.

I hope that you enjoy the poems on the website. However, if you don’t, please don’t feel the need to let me know. No, really. It’s OK not to tell me.