glad you liked brief encounters.. i was thinking about at one point about reading brief encounters at ky's event but then i thought this was a all ages event so it wouldn't have being suitable - maybe next year! lol - i have got lots off different writing events on the go.. hoping for round 2 in ireland next year.. how bout u?

Comment is about Tomás Ó Cárthaigh (poet profile)

Original item by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

Sorry Bernie - I could never like anything like this. I know it goes on but it isn't something I want to read about poetically - just too painful. I guess I shouldn't have commented. Will just go and now bury my head in the sand....

Comment is about Support Your Goverment Forces (blog)

What fabulous taste in singers you have. Our family loves Nina; she is so evocative!

Comment is about Listening to Nina Simone (blog)

Original item by Marianne Daniels

Welcome to WOL, Mr Thomas. A very thought-provoking first posting - as the whole issue of lies always is. Very interesting association of the ocean and the rain, the inevitable water cycle: nothing is ever lost.

Comment is about Lies (blog)

It's still good stuff Nicky! Glad you've posted it here. Keep em coming. Thanks for the comment - just what was needed - sympathy from a fellow sufferer

Comment is about 'STUFF' (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

Everything is SO GOOD. - diction, internal rhythm and assonance, line breaks, mood - everything. You are so talented.

Comment is about bedtime substitute (blog)

Thankyou so much Dominic. I enjoyed your poems very much too and just red the one about purple. It's velvet for sure, even in different colours velvet is purple. I can't see in 3D you know, it's all like a big painting or film to me!
Yes, it was enjoyable. And I'll let you know what I'm doing, maybe will catch you more often this year? Cathy x

Comment is about Dominic Berry (poet profile)

Original item by Dominic Berry

Thanks Sarah and you stay strong mate.
Bernie

Comment is about Support Your Goverment Forces (blog)

Very strong and to the Point!
I really like this!
keep up the good work

sez x

Comment is about Support Your Goverment Forces (blog)

not anti in the least Cynthia, glad of the advice.
Bernie

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Cynthia, the words on the poster read "Support Your Goverment Forces" they were written in French but that is the translation I got from my Congolese Friends.
Bernie

Comment is about Support Your Goverment Forces (blog)

Cynthia the poster read "Support Your Goverment Forces" was in French but that was the translation I got from my Congolese Friends.

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Thanks Cynthia for your advice, my grammer is not good to say the least, will do an edit now, again thanks
Bernie

Comment is about Support Your Goverment Forces (blog)

Stephen! I wasn't at all offended! Quite the opposite I was amused and intrigued and just thought it would be fun to ask the same question about Irish writers...O dear, obviously I was to curt in my answer...I DO apologize..

Comment is about stephen smith (poet profile)

Original item by stephen smith

Does it matter if I'm male or female? haha, many female writers have wrote under male pseudonyms throughout the years. Interesting one - and I wasn't offended by the way. Just makes me wonder if what I write is A-sexual at the moment, or whether it's the fact that my mother called me Nichola because she thought that the female version of Nicola was Nicholas without the S. Then again I was going to be called joanne so I'd have been called Jo anyway. Think she may have wanted a boy!

Comment is about Glass Eyes (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

excellent work at Inside Out man. I was thoroughly entertained throughout. I can't believe you say you don't read often yet you had such a relaxed and easy vibe on stage- very charismatic and hugely enjoyable. Please let me know when your reading round Manchester way next, your stuff is brilliant and it was a joy to watch you perform. well done fella

:)

Comment is about Paul Broadhurst (poet profile)

Original item by Paul Broadhurst

wonderful poems here and a truly wonderful set at Inside Out- literally full of wonder. Your work is dead impressive as is your delivery- you need to get out there and share your work more! I thoroughly enjoyed sharing ths stage with you and your poems were ace- great length, greath humour, very deep and personal. Excellent stuff. Come to Freed Up!

:D

xx

Comment is about Lydia (poet profile)

Original item by Lydia

cathy!

you were AMAZING at Inside Out yesterday. I thought the whole evening was a wonderful mix of excellent performers and it was a joy to perform there. I love how your poems so easily mix very funny lines with sincere and deeply moving raw emotion. Your work is so, so enjoyable, celebratory and clever- absolutely excellent. please keep me up to date with where else your performing as i'm looking forward to seeing you on stage again

:)

d

x

Comment is about Cathy Crabb (poet profile)

Original item by Cathy Crabb

Do you ever write trad metre-and-rhyme poems, Catherine?

Comment is about Catherine Smith (poet profile)

Original item by Catherine Smith

I like it too Nicky and have been interested by what you've said in the Discussion thread, which must be linked.

Does it work to sit down and say "OK I'm going to create a poem"? Or do we need something inside us which demands to be written down, at least as a starting point?

Comment is about Write Out Loud! (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

Hello john
thanks for your lovely comment on my poem 'permiss my cry'
it's one of those that probably says too much about me!
:)

Comment is about John Darwin (poet profile)

Original item by John Darwin

Because I very carelessly read "Nick" which could still have been female. I'm thinking about this.

Comment is about Glass Eyes (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

Cheers Steve.
Bernie

Comment is about Silver Foil (blog)

Cate, I removed my very personal comment from "Sunflowers' only because I thought it interfered with your poem. I should have posted it here, under your PP.

Comment is about Cate (poet profile)

Original item by Cate

or if you did explain them, it may be an anticlimax. Thousand plus years of poetry and writing that we all put our own interpretations on, would be gone. I suppose you could say that we all see things in different ways, and if we didn't? Don't you think that the world would be a boring place and, more to the point, sterile?

I think that the reader is actually at an advantage when reading a poem - not disagreeing with you because it's all down to how they read it, and they may read a poem at different points in their life and it's holds different meaning for them.

I think too much in my time out! lol - ha can use it now I know what it actually means!x

Comment is about Glass Eyes (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

And you're right. After you 'ideas dump', then comes the discipline of sharpening them to fine ideas worth sharing and remembering. But no one can teach the initial insights that have to 'hit the paper' or 'the screen' in their rough form.
This poem is clever, and punchy.

Comment is about Write Out Loud! (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

The reader is always at a disadvantage when interpreting a poem - just how do you find yourself round someone else's thought processes without the background history. I think I'm starting to understand Nicky and I guess there are some poems that you just don't want to fully explain. Isobel x

Comment is about Glass Eyes (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

thanks for your your comments , i am sorry you see an underlying sadness francine , there is none intended at all , but maybe that is the mood you are in .

Comment is about Rowan tree (blog)

A sad one Nicky. I never know what to say about sad ones - just know that I don't like to ignore them. x

Comment is about Lilley (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

Dear Michele,
I posed the question on Camus as a humorous allusion to existentialism....in which the importance of rhyme would maybe have been darkly appraised...I did not mean to offend..I speak fluent French and am a lover of French Literature and film ..I beg your pardon if my attempt at humour was maladroit. I appreciate your work and am amazed at your ear for tune in the English language.Pardonnez moi.
Steve Smith

Comment is about Michèle Vassal (poet profile)

Original item by Michèle Vassal

Tomas, first of all I apologise, for the wrong spelling of your name. I Had No Time For Old Clocks To See is extremely interesting for me, it catches a moment in time and then revisits that memory if I have read into it correctly, or maybe it's just, that is the the thing for me. Time that ticks on by, and yet many times we are stuck in that one moment of time. I am going to have to listen to your piece a few more times.

Comment is about Some Poems from Prague (blog)

Original item by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

Stuff can cause a lot of bother... true...

Comment is about Nicky Burrows (poet profile)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

The Ted Hughes oem is a little irreverant... I wonder someday will someone do a Tomás Ó Cárthiagh poem? lol

Comment is about Tommy Carroll (poet profile)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

"Four Magnolia Walls" tells us that people should be just people, not trying to be sophisticated or whatever...

Comment is about Rachel Pantechnicon (poet profile)

Original item by Rachel Pantechnicon

I liked "Journal Heart Attacks"

Comment is about Marianne Daniels (poet profile)

Original item by Marianne Daniels

"Breif Encounters" is very enjoyable read, Andy. How have you been keeping?

Comment is about Andy N (poet profile)

Original item by Andy N

"Old Woman in a Corner" gives an abrupt ending that can give so many meanings... it could be a oem on the Holocaust... the boots being the Nazis arriving, or it could be about current times where junkies arrive to rob the house... such a dark overcurrent to this... I like it...

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Love it! Except the lilly part. I love lillies. For me, personally they have a smell that makes me want to remember, and are pure and innocent. It is such a shame that something so beautiful can be related to death and sadness.

My family know already that when I pass, its yellow and white. Including the dress, which my husband is horrified about, if I go before him, because he nearly always wears black, for me it's sunshine and light, that's the way I want to be remembered.

Comment is about Sunflowers (blog)

Original item by Cate

by purity in the last comment, I mean innocence, untainted.

Comment is about Glass Eyes (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

Think I've always been possessed by something Isobel! Just haven't figured out what yet! haha!

The supernatural fascinates me, because it can never truly be explained. I struggle with the opposition of science and nature against faith and supernatural elements and always try to find balance.

There is a stuffed toy in this poem, but not a cuddly stuffed toy, it's a huge tiger. It is also linked ( for me ) to children. - in particularly one child. As Cynthia stated, children have an affinity with stuffed toys and this particular child although he wasn't long on this earth had an affinity with big cats, which are linked with the supernatural and animals also with the native american Indian spirit world.

The melancholy terror, is a mixture of loss and the unknown, of what really happens to one after their life expires. We either lose faith or question endlessly, or believe that they are still here.

It does sneak up on you janet, but I believe that it is not mean't to be 'sneakily', or scary. The simplicity that you described is a purity.

Love all your comments. Cynthia, why did you assume I was male?

Comment is about Glass Eyes (blog)

Original item by Nicky Burrows

Would Joyce or Beckett?

Comment is about stephen smith (poet profile)

Original item by stephen smith

Love it, love it, love it. Not enough laughter on this site so this one does it for me. Reminds me of many a butt I saw whilst once on holiday in Disneyworld - need I say more...

Comment is about But Butt Buttt (blog)

I know I'm putting my neck on the block, but I was 'inspired' by Cate's 'A Cheeky Little Number'.
I suppose this could be the sequel, but I wrote it in January, after a bus ride form Huddersfield.
I was encouraged to post this by a female contributor, no names no pack drill.

Comment is about But Butt Buttt (blog)

Dear Michele,
Thank you for your comments on my work...I read 'Love in Corca Dhuibhne' and was moved by it -well-crafted too. As a french poetess , could you answer the question "if Camus had written poetry, would it have rhymed?"
Steve Smith

Comment is about Michèle Vassal (poet profile)

Original item by Michèle Vassal

Last couple of days I have been thinking along the same lines...
Lovely imagery in this...
There is an underlying sadness as it can be related to love and loss...

Comment is about Rowan tree (blog)

Both feeling a little reflective at the moment, I see.
Nice work,
Cx

Comment is about Rowan tree (blog)

Hi Cynthia, Thank-you for reading and commenting on Shhh ..... as always, your comments are much appreciated.
Cx

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Very clever with the title Cate ; )
Interesting observing others...

Comment is about A Cheeky Little Number (blog)

Original item by Cate

Thanks Beulah.
Bernie

Comment is about Pandemic (blog)

Thanks Beulah

Comment is about The Endless Day (blog)