Wave Silo

In 2018 I undertook a fool's journey through the letters of the alphabet, writing a poem a day (more or less) for each of the 26 letters known to English speakers today. The poems were influenced by the shapes and sounds of the letters, and by the ancient symbols - the hieroglyphs and pictograms - which were their ancestors. The sequence of poems quickly began to take on the form of a surreal quest narrative, with the mysterious letter zed at its end. After some crossing some hurdles I finally made it to the izzard on the July 1st 2018. I am now (as of February 2019) working on a Tarot deck inspired by the poems with the artist Abigail Jones . The rest of the sequence is now taken down for editing (and publisher-seeking), but the current (February 2019) drafts of 'A' 'B' and 'C' appear below. The ancestral symbols which are relevant here include: for A , a bull's head  (I would also refer readers to Malcolm McNeill's article ' A is for Girl...

Highly commended in the Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival Poetry Prize , 2018 - click the link to read the other winning entries. Thanks to David Reakesmith for alerting me to the contest, and Billy the Bard (Chaired Bard of Glastonbury) for representing me at the prizegiving.

Cross-posted from Southwark Heritage . On Tuesday 5 December, the footbridge over Salter Road was named ‘The Poet’s Bridge’ in a short ceremony which also involved the unveiling of twin weathering steel plaques at its centre. The specific poet for whom the bridge has been named is  David Jones , whose epic war poem ‘In Parenthesis’ was described by TS Eliot as “a work of genius” and by WH Auden as “a masterpiece”. It is a quote from this poem that now decorates the bridge: “The returning sun climbed over the hill, to lessen the shadows of small and great things” Jones was a visual artist as well as a wordsmith. These words are rendered in the shape of Jones’ calligraphic script and accompanied by a reproduction of his woodcut ‘Holy Ghost as Dove’. The panels were designed by the artist Parm Rai and finished at the workshop in Deptford. The work was funded by Southwark Council through the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe community coun...