Disability Arts Online (DAO)

– an intro and poems from my forthcoming book A Staff of Asklepios on Disability Arts Online (poems – ‘Oracular Confusion’, ‘Floating’, ‘Reduction’, ‘Lilly 4112’, ‘Meditation Course’, two haiku, ‘The Word Spider’ and ‘Mozart Giggle’). Many thanks to Colin Hambrook and DAO for their support.

– later I wrote a haibun style essay (with poems) about what attracts me to poetry was also published by DAO (see below for the forthcoming major revision of that essay with Lapidus International)

DAO have also published some individual poems with introductions –
 Paper
 Incarnation (at their old website)
DAO Blog, observations i & ii
DAO blog – grace

As those last links suggest I am also blogging at DAO and will include links as they occur.

Survivors’ Poetry

Survivors’ mentorship with Simon Jenner has led to my forthcoming debut collection a staff of asklepios.

Survivors’ have featured selections of my poems in their newsletter Poetry Express (numbers 45, 54, 57 and 60) – you can get a copies by contacting Dave with the email address –  bricolage92 at hotmail dot com . Poems published:

#45 – ‘A Sonnet’,’The Natural Word‘ , ‘Lilly 4112’, ‘Incarnation’, ‘Mozart Giggle’ and ‘Oracular Confusion’
#54 – ‘Transreality’, ‘Paper’, ‘Supernova’, ‘Of Course’, ‘Tynemouth, Any Mouth‘  and Ozu
#57 –  ‘tell me when’,’ saturation’, ‘being ill ‘,  ‘broken‘, ‘words don’t mean a thing‘, ‘make of yourself a light‘ prayer and ‘ in process‘
#60 – ‘lightning strike sanities from the stratosphere‘ and ‘Medicine’s Mask’
#61 – Grace, untitled iv ’19 and untitled xii (’19)

I revise and find I have said least to express my gratitude to Simon and SP (Dave Russell at Poetry Express), perhaps as my first recognisers and first to see the potential of my poems I take it too much as read. I’ll always be grateful to their ear, to Simon’s and the catalyst they are in so many ways, and one face of the real healing, even to the healing.

Unstapled Press

featured my poems, ‘A Sonnet’ and ‘Transreality’ in their anthology on sexuality and gender, Venn, in 2016.

My sonnet Plight was published in the Lapidus’s Spring 2019 Journal.

As indicated above a substantial rewrite of my DAO haibun essay ‘what attracts me to poetry’ is due to be published in the forthcoming Lapidus Journal. My thanks to Francesca Baker and her word limit idea. And to Lapidus (do check them out, a very positive writing organisation for wellbeing – https://lapidus.org.uk/ )

The Writers’ Cafe magazine

Another sonnet,  ‘A Reunion‘ has been published In The Writers’ Cafe Magazine, Masks – Issue 17 The Writers’ Cafe Magazine — FREE!  (it’s the final poem in the post). These sonnets together with ‘A Sonnet’ and ‘Transreality’ and a few others and some in other forms have become something of a sequence on gender.

Places of Poetry

I submitted two poems which are placed on the lovely Places of Poetry website – Tynemouth, Any Mouth and   Early February, Town Moor , with thanks to them.

Caduceus magazine

My prose poem Clearing has been published in Issue 103 of Caduceus. My thanks to Poetry editor Kevin Manwaring and magazine editor Simon Best for selecting my poem as part of a theme on beginning again. Caduceus’ web pages are here – https://www.caduceus.info/

We are the Change-Makers anthology

I’m delighted my poem ‘They Think’ was included in this anthology from Drop the Disorder/A Disorder for Everyone who campaign and educate for revision to psychiatry’s use of labels and misuse of categorisation of mental distress as disease/disorder. It is important to say immediately that that is not meant to deny such distress but instead to seek more helpful ways forward in its treatment than these labels that in themselves often cause so much distress.

My thanks to its editor the lovely Jo Watson who campaigns for this cause so tirelessly. The book is available (in the UK anyway) on Amazon and can also be seen and bought from PCCS books here – https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/we-are-the-change-makers. My original post about this poem and publication in here – https://ablindcatchinthesun.com/2020/09/21/poem-included-we-are-the-change-makers-anthology/

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