ZOOMING IN OCTOBER 2022

October's session of The 1000 Monkeys brought readings from 11 poets, including Dónall who led off with three poems for his late brother, Brian, 'Looking just like my photo'; 'Da Vinci's Ghost' and 'Singing the River', one of Janice's favourites among his poems. It was great to see Jenna Plewes, back from her holidays, with poems about her father and mother, both from The Salt and Sweet of Memory, which we published in 2020. Peter Taylor read his rich 'Thoughts of Autumn'. Gerald Killingworth's poems from Emptying Houses reminded us that what will remain of us, 'held in the palm of history' might be something we wouldn't expect ('The Tale of a Turd' explores that possibility seriously and graphically.) Jo Mariner offered friendship in three poems, and Dennis Tomlinson had a new illustrated pamphlet of poems to small treasures. Tony Watts remembered his little daughter's attempts to help in the garden, the late Queen's mourning for her husband, and gave some good advice to aspiring poets. Mantz Yorke had thoughts on the pageantry of the recent funeral of Elizabeth herself, and on the Ukraine war. Ray Pool  celebrated the sight of Jupiter as it passed near to us, had been remembering the humiliation of having to wear a knitted balaclava when he was a boy, and was nostalgic for old-time Scots bands on television. Cherrie Taylor had been reading Ray Bradbury stories and identifying with a monster of the deep, and in 'Crossbones' with a young woman reconstructed from bones exhumed from a mediaeval burial ground in London, Rosie Barrett had words for literary critics and gave us an intriguing prompt (thanks to Simon Williams) — 'Every word was once an Animal'. And Ranald Barnicot had edited his poem until it was.the shortest we'd ever heard from him.

If you would like to hear more poems, we'll be zooming next month on Monday 1st November between 7.30 and 8.45. We hope you'll come and listen, and maybe read some of your own as well. Just email us for a five-minute slot, and we'll put you on the list for the Zoom link and a reading slot on 1st November if there's one left.