‘Does it come on you suddenly, or does it grind away at you like shoulder-pain?’
‘How do you know about my shoulder-pain?’
‘Is is not my business to know?’
‘You know I know where your bodies are buried? You know that don’t you?’
‘So shoot me,’ the book says.
‘I’ll bear that in mind. I’m lonely. Yes. And not lonely, no. When I write I am not lonely, and lonely. When I don’t write I am lonely, and not. Same as when I am reading. Or not. Both. The answer is both.’
‘Actually, would you mind shooting me now?’ says the book.
I am a poet and writing tutor. For 24 years I worked in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, was published in 2023 by Blue Diode Press. Plymbridge, a new pamphlet, is available now from Worple Press. My final research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, was Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.
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