Ceremonies this week are marking the 75th anniversary of allied landings in Normandy. This poem was originally published on-line at karnacology.com a wonderful blog and resource from Karnac publishers, now a part of Taylor & Francis, and no longer available. The poem is a researched poem, generated from family papers and materials held at the Imperial War Museum. It is … Read More
Parchmarks: a re-surfacing of what has gone before
The heading photo for this piece is an example of a parchmark, and here reveals the underlying architectural features of a former Prisoner of War camp on Merrow Downs. These marks have usually only been seen from the air or on Google Earth, but after the long dry summer of 2018 they appeared brazenly in familiar landscapes. When I am … Read More
What’s in a name? experiences of transition and identity
We have come down from the village of Agios Germanos towards the border with the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). This is a land of ancient orchards, vines, almonds, walnuts, above cultivated belts of the huge Prespa bean which dominate the region’s agriculture. Below us on the shoreline of Lake Prespa lies an area of dense vegetation. It is … Read More
Selfie taken a few miles above Tintern Abbey
Where’s the selfie I hear you ask! But if Wordsworth had this technology to support his memory, would he still have honed that ‘inner eye’ enabling him to retain such vivid images of the Wye Valley? And could he have retrieved them with such effect to sustain and enliven him between his first visit and his return? Nowadays, I might … Read More
Poet-in-Residence at the APS conference
Poet-in-Residence – Association of Psycho-Social Studies, Conference 5-7th April 2018 Linking identities: exploring connections between social science and poetry During the conference I will be presenting ideas from my practice as a consultant to organisational change, and exploring how this interweaves with my emerging identity as a writer of poetry. Both these identities depend upon a heightened attentiveness to one’s … Read More