There are only two poems in a ‘traditional’ form in my first collection, and both are in the sequence. The first is this one, a sestina. I read somewhere that for a sestina to truly work, it must be about…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day14
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day14 Translated by violence – that witnessing violence, or carrying it out, or being the victim of it changes you in a fundamental way. It sounds obvious written out like that, but there…
16 Days of Action #day13 #16days
16 Days of Action – Day 13 This is the other poem in the sequence that I don’t usually read out loud. I wrote this at Treloyhan Manor Hotel, in St Ives. I was tutoring a residential there with the…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day12 #16days
The Oxford Dictionary defines a “doppelganger” as ‘An apparition or double of a living person’. There’s an interesting article on the BBC here I also found this rather strange website where you can register your details and find your very own…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day11
EDIT *Apologies – for some reason this post didn’t publish automatically yesterday. Instead it went to my draft folder and sat there!* Day 11 I wrote this in a temper, in a rush, in one go. I think this is…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day10
Day 10 Much of the information for this poem comes from https://medicalnewstoday.com and www.lenstore.co.uk When I was writing this poem, I googled ‘black eye’ and ‘what causes a black eye’ and ‘facts about eyes’. I knew what caused a black…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day7
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day7 Reasons you might stay in an abusive relationship *Perhaps the violence has crept up on you slowly. *Perhaps he apologises afterwards, and he’s genuinely sorry *Perhaps he won’t leave. How do you…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day6
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence – Day 6 The painting above is by a fabulous artist called Fran Riley. It hangs in my living room to remind me what I know. Poets have always turned to myth and…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day5
One must have a mind of winter The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens is one of my favourite poems. It is a poem that has haunted me. I didn’t love it straight away – the first time I read it,…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day4
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day4 Whilst I was writing these poems, this sequence, once I realised that was what I was doing, I started to look around for other poets who had written about violence or trauma.…
