ZOOMING WITH THE 1000 MONKEYS IN OCTOBER 2024

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'.

Julia Duke brought us vivid pictures of Norwegian life and landscapes in 'Lord of Misrule','National Constitution Day' and 'When the streams come together', which was based on 'Bright Field' by R.S.Thomas. Christine Vial returned to the Autumn theme with 'Jason goes back to university, year 2' and then read a poem based on the tragic facts emerging about the burning down of the Grenfell Tower flats 14 years ago - the public enquiry is in the news now.

Ray Pool read about Shalford watermill, garden bonfires and then became Pam Ayes in 'Strictly Off-Limits'. It was a brilliant parody. Liz Kon's poem was in praise of 'My Elastic Friends'. Judith Wozniak's collection 'Making Dolmades in Essex' was published the same day and she came along to read two poems from the book. There's to be an online launch on Wednesday 27th November and a Torriano Meeting House reading with Dónall as her guest, on Sunday 1st December.

Next month we meet on November 5th. We've decided to publish the link here, so that everyone who wants find out how Monkeys feel about fireworks and explosions of the Houses of Parliament and probably a lot of other subjects can find it. This link will open on November 5th at 7:20 for a 7:30 start.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87944122284?pwd=b1jxHH4dri6643GNlGj36APfrsdQp8.1