I was born and raised in Sussex. My father was an ordained clergyman and writer, my mother once accompanied the American singer Paul Robeson, on the piano. I have two older sisters and a younger brother. We were brought up both in a Sussex country parish and within an organisation first founded by our father in South London in the 1930’s.
Continue readingPerformance
I am a maker of poems, tunes and songs. I am also a performer of English poetry – from the present day back to its earliest written beginnings in Anglo-Saxon times. I deliver English poetry so far as possible in its original tomes, dialects and rhythms.
Continue readingDING!
Rhyme is a terrible, tyrannous thing,
Making your verse like a squat till ring:
Sooner or Later
Sooner or later, out from the forest of seem,
Out of the fretting of dream,
On the Name and Nature of God
God the Father and Mother Nature
Are creatures having identical stature,
Tak! Tak! Tak!
God of the oyster
God of the pearl
Haying the Beasts
I wrest high summer out of the stack,
Cram full, hot summer into the rack;
Setting Her by the Ears
The swallows are diving with snickering shrieks
To slash at the crouched cat’s ears:
The Fisher
She is the sea; and he is the fisher
Who watches the surf sliding over the sand:
Of a Girl Running in High-heeled Shoes
Of funny girls he sings,
Who paint their lovely faces;