The last 1000 Monkeys readings of 2024 became very Christmassy at one point, with only three weeks left before The Day. Peter Taylor's poem 'Winter morning' had some beautiful lines: 'I saw a story in the sky this morning', and the sun rising in 'the homeless cold'. Gill Learner read 'Unmoored', the poem of hers that we published in Autumn Makes me Sing in October: it has a moving and unexpected ending. Derek Sellen read 'Winters Past and Present', with Mary Jane, his artist wife, reading the 'past' lines. His second poem referred to the myth of Orion, who was killed by a scorpion. Both constellations are clear in the Northern winter sky — when Storm Daragh is not bullying its way across the British Isles. Timothy Adès gave us his rumbustious translation of 'Pepita' from Victor Hugo's How to be a Grandfather.

Things went from wintry to Christmassy when Daphne Milne read her poems, 'Dear Mr Dickens' and 'A letter to Gran, in case Santa's busy', two masterpieces of the epistolatory art, and ‘The tallest girl in the school announces the Good News'. These brought smiles to everyone's faces. Tony Watts had four Christmas poems including 'A Cutaway Christmas card' in which the Holy Family had issues that we can understand today, with Joseph 'on nights' and sceptical about virgin births, so that Mary's left to give birth alone.

Jenna Plewes read about 'The Night Train — going home for Christmas'; 'Open house' and an intriguing list of definitions of a poem. I liked 'A suitcase you stumble over in the dark' and 'holds you captive until it's all been said'. Christine Vial had unusual memories of her father's Buddhist Christmases and his meeting at Christmas with the Dalai Lama 'apparently by chance'.

Clive Donovan read poems from his recently published book, Movement of People: 'Triple haiku' and 'Inheritance' Both remind us of the need to protect nature and our fellow creatures.  And finally Ray Pool looked at the lengths that Hollywood biographers go to in looking for stories; 'Dark Secrets' (in which he saw the penis as a hitman ('awaiting instructions...as dangerous as its owner'!) and finally 'My Father and Gustav Holst'.

We had a substantial audience for this wonderful pot-pourri of poems. We've invited everyone who was there on the 5th to send us Christmas poems for our pre-Christmas-Eve newsletter, which goes out to subscribers on the 23rd December. We've had a number of poems sent to us already and we're looking forward to putting them together in a CHRISTMAS WITH THE 1000 MONKEYS NEWSLETTER.

We'll be zooming again with The 1000 Monkeys on Tuesday 7th January 2025. Email us in the week before to bag a place in the programme. 

​HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

We met on November 5th, an autumn day that inspired poems about the end of summer, the falling of leaves, and the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot that failed to destroy the British Parliament in 1605. It was also the evening before the landslide defeat of the Democrats in the USA. Of course this last event was yet to happen, and the poems that the forthcoming election inspired ranged from fearful evocations of a dystopian future to defiant images of Kamala Harris as the taunter and slayer of a raging destructive animal. (As I write this, we know the outcome of the American presidential election, but have still to meet any of the potential consequences for world peace.) Armistice Day was only a week away, too. But here's the detail...

Dónall, starting us off, opted for a memory of 'The End of Summer' when he accidentally brought about the death of a butterfly, and his poem in memory of his sister's death, 'Tiny Clinging Curls'.

Peter Taylor's poem celebrated the moon in all its aspects, including the stormy full moons we've been experiencing this month. Derek Sellen read of his memory of a November tree and in his 'Elegy for a Field' he mourned the loss of local landscape to housing projects. His 'George Mallory's Ice Axe' narrated fascinating history of some of the lost climbers that have emerged from the melting ice on the slopes of Mount Everest, a theme echoed later in Greg Smith's 'Hole', about an Arctic expedition under pewter skies. Greg's poem 'Merde Hill in November' presented a different landscape, a grey tip of scrap metal and tyres.

Daphne Milne took us on a walk round her village in November and also picked up on the Armistice Day theme, with 'I've so much to tell you'. Phil Lawder's poem 'They Didn't Talk' reminded us of the traumas inflicted on foot soldiers in WWI (and on anyone involved in trench warfare) before two lyrical poems about autumn: 'We know a thing or two, the Moon and I' and 'Yorkshire Hills'. Christine Vial's 'The Trees are Burning' painted a picture of autumn colours, and 'Penny for the Guy' evoked the Bonfire Night ritual of her and my own childhood when children wheeled effigies of Guy Fawkes round city streets, collecting money. Tony Watts gave us a set of poems that painted autumn landscapes, and a word picture of Elgar's 'Autumn Concerto'. Peter Wilkinson had 'Dawn Awakening' and 'Early Morning Mist', both about autumn mornings, two poems fresh from his pen on the day.

Clive Donovan read 'Prison Letters' and 'Prison News', two poems from 'Movement of People', his new collection, which he is launching in Totnes on 21st November. This promises to be a very enjoyable occasion and we plan to attend it.

Judith Wozniak read 'The Red Bike' and 'Going to the Dogs', two poems from her collection, 'Making Dolmades in Essex' which is launched online on 27th November and in a face-to-face event at The Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Avenue, Kentish Town, London, on 1st December. (Dónall is also reading, as a guest poet, at the Torriano.)

The fears and uncertainties of the next day's presidential election coloured poems by Mantz Yorke and Rod Whitworth. Mantz's 'American Triptych' presented three paintings from French Revolutionary days as metaphors for today's American political dilemmas. His second poem presented the Democratic candidate as a matador dispatching a raging animal in the bullring. Rod's three poems began with 'I am the one with many hands'. His dystopia poem was pessimistic: the Trump-Putin bridge across the Bering Strait had brought decay to Europe. And his Remembrance Day poem, 'November in the Rain' was a sombre picture.

So we woke next day to the reality of the results of the American presidential election. 'Say no more' as some English comedian used to advise...

We press on towards the next meeting of The 100 Monkeys. It will be on Tuesday 3rd December at 7:30. You can apply to us in the week before, beginning on Monday 25th November (by emailing us in response to our newsletter of that date) to read some of your own poems. We're looking forward to hearing from you on any subject — perhaps Christmas will feature, or perhaps you'll find other topics to write good poetry about, to share with a group of friendly listeners... looking forward to hearing from you.     — Janice Dempsey

1st October with The 1000 Monkeys turned out to be a little bit chaotic but we still had fun. The chaos was due to Janice having been on holiday for most of September and the system of recording the readers that she fondly imagines she has under control having become unravelled in the week that she returned to her grindstone at the end of the month. The unfortunate result was that two valued poets got left out of the final list of readers. Apologies have been sent and we hope to see both of them again soon.

​Starting us off, Dónall was in sombre mood because September is the month in which he lost his much-loved younger brother, Brian. His first poem was an elegy called 'Looking Just like my Photo'. His second was from his 'Nursery Crimes' series — The Three Blind Mice meet a Mafia moll! 

Jenna Plewes had topical poems this wet month: 'The Bird in the Rain' (previously published in Prole, and 'Blackberries' — the 'slow falling away of summer' was a lovely line. Tony Watts told of an deer antler discovered in woods, and had us all laughing bitterly with 'The Devil's Alphabet'. Pollution, traffic jams, sacrifices — mankind in need of a good overhaul. Daphne Milne's poems were politically topical — 'the boys set out on the adventure of war' but the women stay to clear up the results, followed by 'Photograph of boy with medal'. She lightened the mood again with jazz — 'Doodling on Henry Street'.