Please join us for a zoom launch of our annual Twelve Days of Christmas feature, on 13th December at 4pm GMT. Our 12 readers are: Pascal Vine , David Bleiman, Maggie Mackay, Amlanjyoti Goswami, Carole Bromley, Lesley Ingram, Ramona Herdman, Sue Burge, Susie Wild, Antony Owen, Gareth Writer Davies and Helen Boden.
This is part of our monthly ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home, and IS&T publisher Kate Birch.
Please email Kate Birch at inksweatandtears@aol.com before the Sunday for meeting details.
Our bumper 38 poem feature runs from 21st December to 1st January, and it would be lovely to see you at this sneak preview!
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We would like now to celebrate the life and work of poet and poetry activist Reuben Woolley who died last December. Reuben was a regular contributor to IS&T and featured three times in our slanted Twelve Days of Christmas feature. Reuben was a fine poet and very well-loved in the poetry world. This poem appeared on the site on 3rd January 2014.
us
here I am
alone
in a quiet room
writing these words
in a diary I never keep
here alone in December
writing in May
so
obviously
time is not a relevant factor
the when of these words
can be forgotten
but somewhere
there’s you
not here
somewhere else
so place can be factored out as well
it seems
the only significant things
are this ink
on this paper
and your eyes
on these words
your head
my pen
your thoughts
our words
Reuben Woolley’s 2019 collection This Hall of Several Tortures is published by KFS, and available here: https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress
More poems by Reuben here: https://inksweatandtears.co.uk//?s=reuben+woolley
And this is Greg Freeman’s tribute to him in WriteOutLoud: https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=97630
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