Poetry
As a bard, I think of poetry as a spoken rather than a written medium. I've always felt that the impact of my work depends as much on presentation as on the words themselves and my experience of winning the Gorsedd has powerfully reinforced this belief. For all that, I'm putting together a book of poetry 'Personal and Political' and this will be available from the local Glastonbury bookshops and whoever else would like to stock it and of course directly from me. Do ask if you're interested, it'll keep me going!
So to present a small selection of my work, I begin with 'The Power of Nine' which precipitated me into my position as Chief Bard of Ynys Withrin. This is an invocation straight from the heart and I truly believe that there are nine maidens smiling on my success.
My daughter reckons 'Little Knowing' captures completely her experience of being questioned about living in Northern Ireland. 'How to make a Terrorist' remains one of my favourite poems although I've said it in situations where it's gone down like a lead balloon. I think there are major parallels between what's happening to the Muslim community now and what happened to working class Catholic communities in the 60s and 70s.
'Speaking Stones' is about my experience of working with people abused as children and I wrote it as I was emerging from my silence as a counsellor. It was powerfully therapeutic to write and includes true stories that I never imagined telling anyone. It says a lot about my work as a counsellor but is seriously hard going.
'Weep and Pray' took me months to write. It's a distillation of my experience of last winter when I wasn't managing to get this website together! It is vital at this time that we look the truth squarely in the face and this poem reflects the powerful process of doing so. I would like to thank my Strange Sisters, Rachel and Jo for all their help and encouragement in writing this.
And the last couple of poems I include are from the Strange Sisters 'Seasonings' show at Winter Solstice last year. 'In the Name of Peace' is about the work I did with Glastonbury Peace Group in the lead up to the attack on Iraq and 'Strange Sisters' is about a writing session with Jo and Rachael as we worked together for the performance. It was an immense experience to work with two such wonderful poets and we're doing another show in the spring.
