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Bristol , United Kingdom
Poet and poetry facilitator. Pushcart Prize nominated. Co-founder of the Leaping Word Poetry Consultancy, which provides advice for poets on writing, editing and publishing, as well as qualified counselling support for those exploring personal issues in their work - https://theleapingword.com. My sixth poetry collection, Love the Albatross, is now available from Indigo Dreams or directly from me.

Friday, 1 September 2023

Two poetry walks and a funeral

The IsamBards had two attentive and (comparatively) sizeable audiences for their poetry walks at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden Bee and Pollination Festival the weekend before last. 


This is not a bee, of course, it's a hoverfly, but a useful pollinator for all that; the festival doesn't discriminate and neither do poets.




a Common Carder bumble bee



another hoverfly





Apis mellifera mellifera (so good they named it twice)


It's unusual to get four IsamBards together and looking in the same direction as each other. We so very nearly managed it. 







A few days later I was at Arnos Vale cemetery for the funeral and woodland burial of John Terry, one of the first people I met in the Bristol poetry community after I plucked up the courage to go out and read my poems. John, who'd died after a long illness, was a fine poet and it was a joy to hear his voice again, reading his poems, in recordings made some years ago at Bristol Acoustic Night. 



During the gathering, crows and ravens flew overhead, as did an aeroplane, which was entirely appropriate, John having been an engineer at Aerospace. It was an absolutely fitting farewell in a beautiful spot.  


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