An individual has not started living

until he can rise above the narrow

confines of his individualistic concerns

to the broader concerns of all humanity.

                           

                            – Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a garden in suburbia

a man puts a fence around

his garden, he likes to sit

in his garden and watch

the wheels turning on the

outside world.

his garden is roughly square

next door’s garden is an oblong.

all the gardens in the street

are different shapes, different

things happen in each garden.

a new family have moved in

they are different too, they knock

down all fences and take over other

people’s gardens, ruining the street.

the police stop responding to

your calls as they have more

important things to do.

the nice single parent from two doors

down has asked if she can pitch a tent

on your lawn and you agree to…

Bird is an excerpt from Myra’s Circling the Core (Enitharmon, 2008), discussed HERE with an interview.  Myra is an award-winning poet with eleven published collections. She is a writing coach and a tireless advocate for poetry in all its beauty, power and ability to heal.

Link to Poetry PleaseHERE. It would appear you can stream on demand from anywhere. There’s also a small archive of past shows.

Poetry Please is moderated by Roger McGough, last seen here with Mafia Cats. Well-known actors read the poems. It will be fun to see who reads Bird. According to Wikipedia this show is the longest-running poetry show in the world … twenty-five years.

For your convenience: World Clock Converter.

© portrait and cover art, Myra Schneider 

Artist and Sculptor Colin Spofforth and poet Angela Topping are pooling their skills and experience to create a wonderful, dynamic memorial to Winnington’s past and future. But they need your help.

Colin’s lifesize sculptures are currently being finalised and updates will be published on this site.

Angela has been commissioned to write a short poem on the past history of the site, which will be carved into the stone plinths of the finished sculptures. This poem is being crowd-sourced and the finished work will be a crafted complilation of memories from the people who lived in the area, worked at the ICI factory, played on the site or who have any other memories of the place. Such memories can be posted into the comment section below, or emailed to Angela at anji.topping@gmail.com.

The deadline for this community involvment is Monday 18th July.

Colin and Angela also want the younger generation…

I stitched my mouth
together to stop you,
as my words
are not heard.

I will starve,
as you sip cider
from bowls
and eat freshly
baked croissants.

This feature was originally published by ARTEMISpoetry (13 November 2013) and is delivered here with the permission of the publisher, Second Light Network of Women Poets (SLN) and the award-winning poet, Myra Schneider, whose most recent of eleven collections is The Door to Colour.

Some months ago at one of the twice-yearly poetry readings, which I help organize for Poetry in Palmers Green, a woman I didn’t know, turned to me as she was leaving and said apologetically: ‘I’m afraid I don’t write poetry.’ It was as if she had been attending under false pretences. I told her we welcomed everyone and felt it important our audience didn’t only consist of writers. The conversation reminded me sharply that in Britain poetry is in the main seen as a separate world. Who would go to a concert feeling uncomfortable that she/he didn’t play a musical instrument?

Why is it that…

Three poems today, and two more on the 29th February  because that is such a rare date. Then there will be a few on the following Monday 8th March, after StAnza Poetry Festival. These should keep you going.

Carolyn O’Connell describes Toby Glanville’s photograph in great detail (the photograph is available on Creative Commons) while Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons experiences the interruption of a teaching session on a poem by Roethke by an emperor moth in the garden. Great stuff.

Then a change of mood with the late Maurice Lindsay’s thoughts as an elderly poet on the world’s recurring problems, which seem to be even more pressing today than in 2008 when he wrote this poem.

And if that isnt enough for one reading,  the Chinese spring and the rest of last week’s poems are still there in the February posts.

Carolyn O’Connor
Time Lag
from Plasterer’s Mate 1992 by…

A found poem based on the transcript of Donald Trump‘s Presidential Campaign Announcement on June 16^th, 2015

We don’t have victories anymore.

They kill us.

I beat China all the time.

All the time.

When did we beat Japan at anything?

They beat us all the time.

When do we beat Mexico at the border?

They’re killing us.

A group of people,

a nation that truly has no clue.

They don’t know what they’re doing.

They don’t know what they’re doing.

Obamacare: you have to be hit by a tractor,

literally, a tractor, to use it.

When was the last time you heard China is killing us?

They’re killing us.

I don’t care.

I’m really rich.

Somebody said, “Oh, that’s crass.”

It’s not crass.

“Please reconsider.”

No.

We’re dying. We’re dying.

We need money.

Thank you, darlin’.

I think I’m actually a very nice person.

I’m really proud…

“Time had not teased me. I thought eternity was mine in which to live and in which to write. Thinking myself amazingly intelligent, I saw no reason to hide my light under a bushel basket.  My youthful poetry paraded my stuff. I imitated Horace shamelessly; he still remains one of my favorite poets in the original Latin but I have grown up enough not to imitate him. Who could?

“Perhaps there will only be one Rita Mae.  I’m not sure I could stand another one.  Anyway, as I learned more and more about language and literature I also learned more and more about my own limitations.  I wanted to write a perfect poem.  I was soon humbled and wanted to write a great poem.  I eventually became realistic: I wanted to write a good poem.”

. . . so says American novelist, screenwriter, POET and activist, Rita Mae Brown (b…

For everyone who eats, sleeps and breathes poetry and wishes poetry was their day job, THE POET BY DAY (including  The Poet by Day Facebook Page) is reinventing itself, transitioning to an information hub on all things poesy with special – but not exclusive – light on:

• global poetry initiatives for peace, sustainability and social justice
• she-poets
• minority poets
• poets just finding their voices in maturity

SPECIAL ON THURSDAYS: Celebrating American She-Poets. Yes! I know it’s cheeky to steal from Muriel Rukeyser like that, but “American She-Poets” is so pungent v. “American Woman.”
So join with me in the glory of poetry: poets, poems, news, reviews, readings and events. If you’d like to share an announcement for an event, publication, book launch or class, you must send it fourteen days in advance to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. Publication is subject to editorial discretion.
Thank you!
Jamie Dedes

© All rights reserved