ZOOMING WITH THE 1000 MONKEYS IN JANUARY 2025

The first meeting of The 1000 Monkeys in 2025 came quite late because the first Tuesday fell on the 7th of January. With 12 excellent readers and a good audience of listeners, it was worth waiting for.

Christine Vial started us off with three seasonal poems, most appropriate now that winter has seriously descended on the UK. 'Frosted' first published in Souhbank Poetry, was followed by a 'Brief Encounter' under a winter moon, of a 'grieving widow' with a railway level-cross operator who is 'a would-be werewolf' to juged by his hairy hands! 'Fridge' offered 'anti-resolutions' to those who are resolve to carry on enjoying food and drink after Christmas revelry is over!

Ray Pool began with a a limerick about 'A Young Man in a Queue' and then followed up Christine's railway theme with 'The Night Mail' — a nod to W H Auden and John Betjeman, and the news that Royal Mail no longer transport mail by rail but use road and air transport instead. 'The Tea Lady' celebrated a lady who catered for the food and drink needs of the band that pianist Ray travelled the UK with, by coach, before he retired. 

Peter Taylor's poem 'In Flight' was chosen by Claire, his wife, to read on his behalf — a lyrical and thoughtful poem about the flight formations of migrant geese. 'Who flies as leader?'

Jenna Plewes rattled windows and doors and bowed cedars down before 'Storm Bert' which hit the UK in November 2024. Her 'Letter to my Husband' was a tender memorial.

Peter Wilkinson brought in some Mediterranean sunshine with 'Postcard from Pelion', a vivid 'postcard poem which made all of us wishe we were there.

'The Landlady's Tale' by Gill Learner gave a voice to the kind, sensible village woman who owned the inn where Mary and Joseph found shelter. Her help with the birth of the baby is rewarded in the last lines of the poem. Gill encouraged us to 'Be grateful for the weather' — good advice considering that we can't change it!

Tony Watts also rewrote a bible story — in his rewrite of the creation story, Eve is a heroine, and Adam is blamed for creating 'God in Man's image.' 'Skylark' was one of his wonderful sequences about birds.

Daphne Milne was still recovering from breaking her ankle and decided to read two of her poems about the walks she can't atke at the moment. 'Grief doesn't heal remembered walikng with her husband. 'A Walk to the Bucket of Blood took us on a walk in the village where Daphne lives.

Clive Donovan read 'The First Stone', the opening poem of his new collection, Movement of People. Asking unanswerable questions about who was the first aggressor anong humankind Clive speculated, who first picked up a stone and threw it at another man in a violent quarrel? His second poem, from a previous collection, was equally thought-provoking.

Audrey Ardern-Jones gave us a word picture of an eighty-year-old lady who so loved the musical theatre that she always asked 'Play Hello Dolly' and had it played at her funeral. In her ghazal 'Lost Voices' Audrey told of unravelling her own mother's history as an emigrant from Lvov. 
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Greg Smith remembered 'Number 38 The Birches' and surveyed the detritus of the post-Christmas home.

Sharron Green's post-Christmas poem was much more cheerful! Sharon reminded us that her open mic event at Solar Sisters in Guildford is on Wednesday 14th January.

And finally, Aaron Barschak read 'On Flanders Field Road', a poem he wrote in 2015 about a small football pitch in East Ham where Bobby Charlton trained as a boy.  

So we started 2025 with a flourish of varied topics and good poems. Our next session will be at 7:30 on February 4th. On Monday 27th January, we'll send out emails to remind you that you can offer to read — just reply if you would like to be included on the list. On Monday 3rd February we'll send you February's link to the event and a list of the readers. To add your name to the list of people who receive these emails, just press the button below. We'll welcome you.
​— Janice & Dónall

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