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Back in January I was honoured to be invited by Poets for the Planet to run two workshops at their launch event at the Society Of Authors in London. “Poets for the Planet is a community of kindred poets, performers, artists and creative activists raising their voices to engage with climate and ecological emergency through … Continue reading Verse Aid : Poems for the Earth →
We are delighted to announce the publication of Canopy a beautifully illustrated 20 page chapbook anthology of poems and flash stories inspired by acclaimed nature writers and sold in aid of future Urban Tree Festivals. Available from our on-line shop 2020 marks the anniversary of some key poets and writers who have put nature writing […]
It has been just over a year since our family said goodbye to …
We are delighted to announce the winners of the first poetry and short story anthology celebrating urban trees – 10 writers have been selected for their engaging pieces that will be published by Sampson Low Publishers in the Urban Tree Festival “Canopy” anthology. They will be joining authors of stories from our Autumn Colours anthology, […]
Write About Trees We are delighted to announce our new competition for writers of both poetry and prose to tie in with the forthcoming Urban Tree Festival in May. At last year’s Urban Tree Festival we had five published authors reading their nature writing, this year we wanted to host an event at which novice […]
My new chapbook, Sward {skin of the earth}, published by Sampson Low Ltd, is available for purchase here Sward + post and packing UK £3.50 GBP EU £4.50 GBP Rest of the world £5.00 GBP Sward represents my walks up and down the central reservation of the A240, Kingston Road, from the Tolworth Roundabout to … Continue reading Sward {skin of the earth} →
a tidal log book: salt, moon, sun, wind ≈ I – Kirkcaldy Harbour To think of the journeys that have started and ended here. Safe harbour: a place of refuge or shelter. Arrivals and departures, crossing borders. Time measured in tidal flows. A … Continue reading →
Below are two of the poems I wrote specially for and read on Alison Fure’s Walk with Jane Soundwalk with the Museum of Walking back in September. There is another soundwalk taking place on Saturday 19th October from 10.30am. It is FREE but please book via the Walk with Jane website. See Alison’s blog for … Continue reading Cambridge Road Estate Tree Poems →
Alison Fure is leading a Soundwalk as part of her Walks with Jane project, in conjunction with The Museum of Walking, through the Cambridge Estate in Kingston Upon Thames, this Saturday evening, 7th September, 2019. From the Museum of Walking website event page: This … Continue reading Walk with Jane on the Cambridge Estate →
Meaning “sod, turf” developed from the notion of the “skin” of the earth (compare Old Norse grassvörðr, Danish grønsvær “greensward”). Walking the central reservation of the A240 Kingston Road, from Tolworth Roundabout to the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames boundary with the Borough of Epsom and Ewell. The project is called ‘Sward’ after reading … Continue reading Sward →
At the wooden bridge, beside the washing-willow, under frayed dare-devil rope-swing, we small-fry gather; splash-paddle in the sun-filled slipstream, our expectant jam jars perched ready on banks for contents of day-glo nets on bamboo poles, skim-dunked, dipped into laughing sparkle, we seek out elusive piscine lurkers, shoal-darters, minnow-school pretty-carpers, spike-backed silver-bellied sticklebacks, shimmer and shift … Continue reading Hogsmill Tiddlers →
Last year I was lucky enough to be part of a wonderful project by 26 and the Imperial War Museum: Armistice 100 Days. This ambitious project involved 100 writers each writing a centena – a specially created form of writing for the project – about someone who was alive during the First World War. Each … Continue reading Votes For Women! Annie Kenney and the 26 Armistice Project →
It is the Urban Tree Festival this weekend – celebrating London’s amazing Urban Forest. While we celebrate our wonderful leafy friends this weekend, I am also commemorating the significant number of trees that are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate at the moment in the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames. This is not something … Continue reading Dead Trees #1 →
osmosis: A gradual, often unconscious process of assimilation or absorption; the spontaneous passage or diffusion of water or other solvents through a semipermeable membrane. ≈ The walker on the city street stops to gaze at the ocean. Tracing a … Continue reading →
A week long immersive course with international trainer and storyteller Steph Bradley. Dates: Wednesday 31st July – Tuesday 6th August 2019 Venue: Bala Brook Retreat Centre, https://www.balabrook.org.uk , Dartmoor National Park, Devon, UK. Accommodation: A range of single and twin rooms, some en-suite, situated in an idyllic setting of gardens bordering open moorland. Meals: All […]
they came to stand and listen a hushed communion old gods. new gods. uncanny colours, shapes and forms the strange, disorienting world of the wild wood listening station (listen in) ≈≈≈ Now playing: Harmonia & Eno … Continue reading →
In the mundane modern semi-detached suburbs slippers, gravel, teatime tables GCSE revision the Moon guides me home welcomes me to this season with its golden corona moonflower harvest sky The Moon ~O~ I speed down the A3 toward Tolworth Tower follow the curve of the road there it is again on the right … Continue reading The Moon Over Tolworth →
“The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge, about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s.” On the Grasshopper and Cricket, John Keats In the midst of the summer heatwave and haze, we … Continue reading Ancient Droves and the Tolworth Area Plan →
The latest in our series of Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum walks is a walk across Tolworth Court Farm Fields, our local nature reserve. We will meet at the white bridge over the Hogsmill / Bonesgate Stream at 11am and take you on a journey through the ancient fields of Tolworth Court Farm, which … Continue reading Walk the Ancient Droves of Tolworth Court Farm, Sunday 12th August →
W. J. Watson has suggested that this is a Pictish water-word, cognate with OW gloiu ‘liquid’, W gloyw ‘shiny’ (1926, 470), while Jacob King prefers a Celtic root *gleiwo- ‘gleaming, clear’. Place Names of Fife (2006) A Saturday in late April 2018. It feels … Continue reading →
