Robins, Christmas and Political Poetry

Amongst the Amazon and eBay deliveries, two very welcome packages plopped into our front hall this week, safe from the teeth of Ted, our border collie.

The first was my contributor's copy of Jane Russ' new Robin Book, published by Graffeg Press, which contains some fantastic work by many talented artists and poets, not to mention of deal of interesting information and folklore about that most seasonal of birds.  

I'm especially pleased my poem, Pairings, has itself been paired with a beautiful and amusing stained glass panel by Tamsin Abbott, while a couple of pages away is Dru Marland's much loved Round Robin. 

It is, I think, the epitome of a useful and beautiful present, and I'm looking forward to giving it a closer reading over Christmas.

Also, rather less seasonally but appropriately, given the impending election, the Northerner and I took delivery of our copies of the latest edition of Raceme, which has a distinctly political flavour. 

I'm delighted to have two poems in there, and don't miss Harvey & Brown's article on the dos and don'ts of writing political poetry.

Finally, when you go into that polling booth on Thursday and think of all the children living in poverty in this rich country of ours, do make sure you don't vote for Herod.