'Zooming with The 1000 Monkeys' in November was very well-attended, with a good audience and Dónall and 14 other readers. We've posted the poems, with the writers' permission, in these video clips from the Zoom recording. Julia Duke read two of her new poems inspired by her reading of Virginia Woolf's books.)  Peter Taylor read a tender love poem to a sleeping lover. It was great to see Greta Ross back with poems about the turmoil of war and a painting by Nevinson, one of the British war artists, and Mark Cassidy, free to join us this month, with his poem about the trials of owning a home that's a listed building. We also welcomed Derek Sellen, who had poems for Remembrance month and his cat on Bonfire Night. Belinda Singleton also read a light-hearted poem, remembering family cats. Jo Mariner had a passionate poem against the civilian 'collateral damage' that we're seeing daily, and Daphne Milne remembered her uncle, a medic in both WWI and WWII.  Autumn was a theme for Anthony Watts and Jenna Plewes, and Richard Carpenter celebrated the 'old gold' leaves of 'Acer Brilliantissimum' in the poem we published in Washed with Noon last month. Ray Pool remembered 'A Day Out' and Timothy Adès read his translation of a poem by the celebrated German novelist, essayist and traditional poet, Ricarda Huch. The poem 'To Rudolf' (her brother), was written in her old age, and is from Autumn Fire, which will be published soon by Salzburg Press. Dennis Tomlinson read German haiku and a poem from his own pamphlet, 'Over the Road', which we published in 2021.

Our next meeting is on December 4th 2023. We'll begin compiling the list of readers through replies to our newsletters in the last two weeks of November. All are welcome, as readers and listeners.

We had 16 readers on 7th February, and a great audience of 25. As usual, Dónall led off with the first of the five minute spots, with new poems as well. as some from his forthcoming book, The Fox, the Whale and the Wardrobe. Julia Duke followed up with poems from her travels,  and Greg Freeman had poems about his life in the North, where he's recently moved — you can hear his account of seeing the rare red squirrels which survive there, in our video. Sue Johns, who followed Greg, had a poem about urban foxes, and one from her short collection, Track Record, about riding the rails in the USA. Joan Michelson's two part poem was called 'Strawberries'. Rosie Barrett read poems about the Guggenheim in Venice and a memory of a small child testing her patience and Alwyn Marriage read from her collection, Possibly a Pineapple. We also had brilliant readings from Timothy Adès, Pratibha Castle, Tony Watts, Jenna Plewes, Liv Johannesson, Derek Sellen, Ranald Barnicot, Dennis Tomlinson, Peter Taylor and Peter Wilkinson.

Next month The 1000 Monkeys will be zooming on 7th March at 7.30 — subscribe to our newsletter and answer next week's mailing, if you would like to receive the zoom link every month.

 Back from our summer break, we had a wonderful evening with our poet friends on the first Tuesday of October, with ten five-minute readings and five one-poem readers, and an audience of appreciative listeners. 'Garden' emerged as a theme in several people's readings. Audrey Ardern-Jones began, however, with two poems from her 2019 collection, Doing the Rounds, followed by a moving poem on a childhood memory of Nazi abuse of a member of her family's household. Paul Surman introduced the garden theme which was then cultivated by several other contributors. Dennis Tomlinson had a poem of complaint about his neighbour's decision to keep ducks in their garden and some short illustrated poems from his recent pamphlet Ornaments. Anthony Watts had a delightful poem in Lewis Carroll vein and Daphne Milne read her 'Gardening Notes', a story of love and death in a garden, and a poem from Venice — 'Rialto Market'.

Dónall had started us off with a poem about his beloved brother, and Phil's first poem, 'Long Distance Call', was also to his brother, but told a different story. He took us for a walk in the country; his 'garden' poem was 'The Bee and Me' and finally an Amazon Prime ad for self-confidence cream with, of course, lots of small print and 'no reply'.

Rod Whitworth read poems from his book, My Family and Other Birds (published by Vole in January 2023) and Timothy Adès read his lipograms of Shakespeare's sonnets 27, 28, 29 and 30.

Jeremy Loynes read 'April Showers' — the Pathetic Fallacy in a supermarket — remembered with love his mother in the kitchen, and welcomed autumn's 'Cloak'. Timothy Adès read his lipogram versions of Shakespeare's sonnets from his book Loving by Will. Ray Pool read 'Period Piece', a slightly scary poem with a happy ending.. 

Liv Johannesson read a poem from her poetry novella What Good Could Grow Here?; Richard Carpenter read 'Horatio's Garden' about the garden founded at Salisbury Hospital by a patient in the spinal injuries unit there.

We were glad to see Greta Ross again, with a surreal sequence called 'Off the Ground'. Simon Williams told us about the plight of the Dartmoor ponies that are under threat of being moved from their centuries-old habitat by ecological activists who believe the animals have no right to feed on the plants there! 

It was a great start to another season of The 1000 Monkeys zoom meetings. In November we'll meet again, on the first Tuesday, 7th November at 7:30.