Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you'll return often and always find something of interest about my world and what inspires me to pick up a pen. (This is a figure of speech, unfortunately. My handwriting is terrible!) Here's what I've been up to recently...

A Tale of Two Poems

I’ve never considered poetry to be my strong point, although I’ve had a few successes over the years. My first blissful week at the Writers’ Summer School in Swanwick, for example,  came about when I was awarded the first prize – a free place – in the poetry competition that year with a quirky sonnet about friendship. To My Writing Partner can be viewed on the Stories and Poems page of this website.

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However, I’ve recently learnt a valuable lesson about writing poetry for the commercial market. The example above has just appeared in print and is a heavily adapted version of a much longer poem written in free verse some years ago. I was delighted when an adjudicator at that time, a highly respected local poet, awarded the latter second place. The magazine that liked the theme but not the form requested a version that rhymed and had a conventional metre. For the free verse poem I received kudos; for the adapted version I received cash. Go figure! Up to you to decide which you prefer, of course. The former is available to read on my Stories and Poems page, should you so wish.

6 January, 2017 - Make the first comment on this story

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