This Month’s Exclusive Poem for Patrons: On Reaching 60: Happenings
This Month’s Exclusive Poem for Patrons: On Reaching 60: Happenings I’m posting this after a long day of strange celebrations … Read more
This Month’s Exclusive Poem for Patrons: Flare
This month’s exclusive poem for patrons: Flare. The trees in London are grey and bare at the moment. Just outside … Read more
Friday Fiction: Iseult Gonne and Lucien Millevoye Take Tea
Maud and Iseult Gonne are living in Normandy, taking refuge from the war in Paris, when they hear that John MacBride, Maud’s husband, has been executed. This leaves Maud frantic to get back to Ireland. She dispatches Iseult to London, to fetch their friend, the poet Willie Yeats.
Allowing Now: The Book and the Poem
I’ve been working on my mindfulness poem “Allowing Now” for a number of years and it’s finally finished. I’ve also been revising some of the poems in that collection.
Maud Gonne hears of John MacBride’s Execution
The story has shifted to 1916. Maud and Iseult are living in Normandy, as the first world war wages and in Dublin, Irish freedom fighters have organized a botched insurrection. Many of their Irish friends and acquaintances were involved. This extract describes what happens when Maud Gonne hears of John MacBride’s Execution for his part.
Happy Holidays Creatives and Creativists
Happy Holidays Creatives and Creativists! I hope you’ll be enjoying a special and happy time over the sparkly season. Below … Read more
Poetry for Christmas
The nights are drawing in here in London and the Christmas lights have just been turned on. This is a poem for the season, inspired by the Christmas angel outside Geenpark tube station, Picadilly. You can find it, and more poems for mid-winter, in my Poems for Christmas collection. It’s available in paperback and hardback, as well as ebook, and makes a great gift.
This Month’s Exclusive Poem for Patrons: Soaring
This month’s exclusive poem for patrons is a Christmas poem “Soaring”, inspired by the Chrismas lights on Picadilly, London. SOARING … Read more
The execution of John MacBride: Ireland’s Easter Rebellion 1916
This is a scene reimagining the execution of John MacBride, Maud Gonne’s husband, for his part in the 1916 Rising. His death was to change life for Maud and Iseult forever.
If you read this speech at the start of a novel, would you read on?
It’s Friday Fiction here on the blog, so I’ll be blogging Dancing in the Wind, Book Two in the Yeats-Gonne Trilogy here with weekly extracts in the Friday Fiction slot.
I’m thinking of opening Dancing With The Wind with one of Maud Gonne’s fiery political speeches.
Question: Would you read on if this was what you found in the first pages of a book?
This Month’s Exclusive Poem for Patrons: Passing On
This post is about November’s exclusive Patreon poem for patrons: Passing On.
If you would like to read the poem, it becomes available exclusively to my patrons today, for the next three months.
Mindfulness Poetry For Creatives
Allowing Now, my new book of mindfulness poetry for creatives is out. And while they are aimed at the general reader, I have a particular interest in mindfulness poetry for creatives. I’d love you to buy it, if that sort of thing appeals to you.
A New Poem: Tree Alert
The trees in London are spectacular at the moment. This particular beauty gave me a new poem: Tree Alert.
Blogging Dancing in the Wind, Book Two in the Yeats-Gonne Trilogy
I have done some shuffling on the fiction front and I’ll be blogging Dancing in the Wind, Book Two in the Yeats-Gonne Trilogy here weekly in the Friday Fiction slot.
Mindfulness and Poetry: Introduction to Allowing Now and a Mindfulness Poem by Thich Nhat Hanh
Practicing mindfulness, though they would never have called it that, is something that poets have always done. And poetry readers … Read more