A Locked Down Year

Wherever you are in the world, the last year could not have been easy. COVID-19 brought with it changed world along with all the disappointment, despair, disaster and death. We’ve all experienced the change: Home working, Zoom Bombing, social distancing, face masks and lockdowns. Tiered living in the UK has made business difficult, but life goes on. Work has all consuming at times.

But, change is among us and no one truly knows what the next year will bring. Let’s hope that it will be kinder. Bring it on, I say!

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For me, running this web site, has been very difficult this year. The task of writing an original poem each and every day has been impossible. This year I have failed. In September I even failed so hard that I posted two versions of the same poem within a couple of days. Bah-humbug!

It was this realisation that led me to concentrating on Japanese forms of poetry. I started with the Morning Haiku series and have continued with the Dream Wakas. I plan to see this out to 100 or more, before moving onward to new challenges. I not sure what form this will take.

Behind the scenes I’ve been actively participating in local poetry groups and studying Poetry with Oxford University. Maybe this will transcend into something. Maybe it’ll be nothing.

In these groups I’ve been experimenting with set forms and meters. I’ve used the common measure to create fun and interesting poetry. I wrote a modern retelling of the Spencer the Rover, which one day I hope to publish.

For me I’m always asking myself whether I this pain and trouble is worth it. Am I a real creator or am I just fooling myself? To be honest I always thought that having lots of read and likes each day was the way to do it, but the more I thought about it the more I realised that most of those page visits or reads are fake. Those people don’t actually read the poetry. They simply click a button on their reader page and it makes a stat they they believe will turn into another stat on their page. So now I’ve stopped looking at the stats. I check in each day to post the newest poem. Just post and hope that people read.

In August I wrote about Blue Boy and Pinkie. Blue Boy is a painting by Thomas Gainsborough. It was brought to American and is now on display in the Huntington Library, California. Displayed opposite him is “Pinkie”, by Thomas Lawrence. These two got me thinking about what kind of relationship they could have without words. Watch this space to find out what it turns out like….

I look forward to sharing the coming year with you all!