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I live in the UK and was born in 1959.

I started my first ever site in 2001 in order to motivate myself to write. Every now and again I get the urge to write a poem, and the results are here. 🙂

Occasionally I tackle my unfinished novel, too (think Terry Pratchett)  but that might take a long, long time. 🙂


I rarely write poems at the moment but writing them has taught me a lot, just as all arts teach us far more than any science can.

I’ve learnt:

  • to recognise the moment
  • to follow my concentration without letting go
  • that the start determines the finish, that poetry can’t be forced
  • to differentiate between the lightest of subtle intuitions
  • that words have a weight and feel of their own
  • that different media lead to the creation of totally different poems
  • that there’s a moment to end and that to try and force beyond that moment leads to disaster
  • that a poem doesn’t have a known outcome but grows and develops until the likely outcome reveals itself (or not)
  • that one day’s perfection and mood can disappear the next day so best to crack on until exhausted or it’ll be lost
  • that if it’s not possible to crack on due to exhaustion then leave the poem at a natural break so that the join the next day is relatively seamless
  • that it’s possible to see where other poets have lost their way or had a natural break in a poem even though non-poets can’t see it, that there are an infinite number of styles and tones of voice in poems and some of them can be mimicked and some can’t
  • that a poem has a subtext of mood and feel and rhythm which can be far more powerful than the actual words
  • that when editing it’s best to do it next day when the mood is still there but the eyes are fresh OR leave tons of time or words between edits (i.e. months or lots and lots of writing)
  • that it takes several days to get tuned in to writing poetry if there’s been a long break and that writing poetry can’t be forced
  • that some days are filled with easy effortless creativity and other days are blank, and I’m sure there’s a whole lot more …

    There’s a lot of life skill in there developed just from writing poetry!