A few days ago top poet, Tony Walsh (Longfella), put out a call on behalf of North Manchester Radio and Hannah Kate for poets to appear on a special live version of her regular Bookshelf programme.
After a look at the station’s website – Northmanchester.fm – I decided that this was a show I’d be happy to involved with. Hannah broadcasts her Bookshelf programme weekly with a range of literary guests and topics and does this alongside her other life as an academic researcher, lecturer and writer. You can find out more on her website here – hannahkate.net

So tonight I’m busy finalising a short set for tomorrow’s programme where I’ll be appearing (if one can “appear” on the radio) along with fellow poets Joy France, Andy N, William Michael Neary, Sharon Lowe and George Melling.

You can pick up the programme locally on 106.6FM or online at northmanchester.fm/listen and the broadcast will run from 2.00pm to 3.00pm.

My father-in-law turned 80 last week so my wife organised a party at award winning local pub; The Baum in Rochdale.

A few days before the event the question of maybe producing a poem to be read at the event was raised and of course I was delighted to offer to write something for the occasion. It is at times like this, when the poet has to produce something suited to an occasion and on a short time-scale, that all the techniques I pass on through workshops really come into their own.

First of all there are a few decisions to be taken which will help shape the final work e.g.;

• What is the function of the piece (this one was mainly to amuse or entertain)
• What is the target audience
• What style of poem are we aiming for

In this case I knew that the poem needed to entertain, to make people smile or laugh and at the same time perhaps tell them something new about the subject. For an 80th birthday the subject had to be the octagenarian himself. Even with someone you know there will be interesting and amusing things you don’t know about them that might well make very useful content for the poem (adventures, misadventures, specialist skills or knowledge etc.) so it is well worth talking to others to research your subject.

The initial ideas – words and images

Using the idea generating techniques I frequently promote I initially jotted ideas into my notebook both in words and visual forms. In this case I knew the subject was well-travelled and having found out some of the places he had visited I did some on-line research so that I could include relevant details in the poem. Ideas from the research were added to the initial notes.

The finished poem, “Can you hear it?”

At the start of the process I often have little idea as to the eventual form of the finished poem, I start with ideas and words and as lines start to form then the rhythm of the piece gradually establishes itself. For an amusing piece I find that rhyme can be quite useful and once I have a set of rough verses I will spend some time considering some rhymes and the patterns they might form. I never treat rhyme as a strict rule and if for example the second and forth lines of the verses have rhyming words to finish them that won’t stop me including a verse (or more) without the rhymes or with a completely different pattern.

Once I’ve reached the stage of a fairly complete poem I will read it out loud to see how it sounds and how it can be improved. After 2 or 3 edits I will, if possible, share the work with someone else to get feedback and help to further refine it. In this case my wife, Maggie, provided valuable input to the development process. There comes a point where I’ll decide that the poem is complete, it has usually migrated to the word processor by that stage and I will save a “final” version and often print it. Of course after that whenever I look closely at the poem and read it a few more times I often make further changes; About then the poem acquires a title, this one became “can you hear it?”. I’m not sure if a poem is ever fully completed.

The poem itself may appear on this blog in due course but here are a few lines with references to John’s adventures through the years:

“The mighty Mekong isn’t flowing / as they try to catch the word”

“and beside the Seinne in Paris / Marcel Marceau paused; mid-mime”

“And as he strides across the mountains / Mr. Mills has all they style, /but he hasn’t had much water / walking mile after mile after mile.”

The acid test of course is the reaction from the chosen audience. Did they get it, did they enjoy it, did they smile, did they laugh in the right places, did they applaud naturally and did they do that terribly British thing of coming over quietly afterwards to say “Good poem, mate!”? Did the person you had written about appreciate and enjoy it?

John and Eileen

This time the answer was yes to all of the above so justifying my confidence in the creative processes and to some extent my ability to write to suit the purpose.

With students well into the exam season and schools starting to wind down towards the end of their year it is time for a poet to prepare for the Summer.

The great thing for a poet is having plenty of ideas to work with and I’m in the fortunate position of having, at least half a dozen in progress right now and a few themes waiting to be developed.

There is a new collection slowly developing with the focus of family and friends and a number of ideas for illustrating some of my existing work – more on that here as it progresses. My first collection, “Thinking Too Much”, is available as an ebook from Amazon or you can email here to buy a copy.

There are workshops to polish and refresh for a couple of writing groups, libraries and a reading group and for schools when they return from the Summer holidays.

National Poetry Day falls on the first Thursday of October and the theme for 2016 is “Messages” so I’ll be tweaking some of my workshops to fit in more closely. Unfortunately I am fully booked on the day itself but I still have some availability during the week.

Add to the mix the relaunch of a writing group, a couple of small commissions and the events I hope to take in it should be a fairly busy summer.

All the time I will also be working on my collections of photography and images. Images can be purchased on a range of formats including prints from 10″x8″ size to customisable framed prints and even printed onto mugs. To purchase images go to www.imagesbyseamuskelly.co.uk

Had a great time visiting the Manchester edition of Spin, the urban cycling festival, and was delighted to meet up with Marco Mori who brought Eroica to Britain.

Meeting Marco Mori at Spin

Eroica Britannia is a 3 day festival of all things vintage and cycling being held for the 3rd year in Bakewell from 17th to 19th June 2016.

After a successful debut last year I am delighted to have been invited back and will be performing a half hour set of my poetry at noon on Saturday 18th. I will of course also be enjoying the festival and will be doing a bit of bike riding too.

Feeling excited.

More about Spin, including some interesting new products, to follow on my cycling blog over the next few days at http://shaycycles.blogspot.co.uk

What a great session on Roche Valley Radio yesterday. Arriving at Fairfield Hospital I was a touch apprehensive, unsure what I might be asked and even unsure of the exact format of the programme but ready with information to hand about recent projects and of course a wide choice of poems to read. You can listen again at Roche Valley Radio

Pictured after the show at Roche Valley Radio

I was met at the entrance by the, also slightly apprehensive presenter, Nicky Smith-Butler. Nicky normally presents a music show and not the Saturday afternoon show with guests as well as the music so was a little unsure about how the programme would go. She and Dave one of the technical and production specialists on the station showed me the studio, helped sort out the connections, microphone position and explain the system. Basically all I needed to do was to speak fairly close to the microphone and not worry.

By now there were a few minutes before the show went live on air to have a quick chat about what might be discussed and then the opening song was rolling towards its end and after a brief introduction I was talking about the “Stories we could tell project” (see blog post of 14th April). Some more music, more discussion on the project, some more music and a poem – a new poem not yet published or on-line called “Come on hat”.

Through tears from the poem’s ending Nicky asked me about Touchstones creative writing group and then played more music picking some of my favourites from Springsteen and Dylan and a few Irish songs from Van Morrison and The Corrs which seemed in keeping with the feel of the show and my obvious Irish heritage.

A discussion about how I made the move to working as a poet and a few more poems (Standby, Seahorses and Different Dad; all blogged here previously and available in Thinking Too Much) and the hour was up.

There had been laughter, tears and some pause for thought and that reminds me just why I do this stuff; poetry can give words that bit more power, it can speak beyond its brief reading and it can speak individually to each person listening – thats why I have to be a poet.

I’ve been the resident poet on a amazing Rochdale project “The Stories We Could Tell”

Working alongside artist, John Cooke, singer-songwriter Rebecca Whitehead and storyteller Ray Stearn and led by Steve Cooke. We’ve been working with young people, a mix of asylum seekers, young people in care and young people with mental health issues using our whole range of skills to help them tell their own stories (real or fictional) and the results so far are awesome. Not only have these young people learned techniques, picked up ideas and developed them and created songs, poems, prose, storyboards, visuals and audio recordings but they have gained so much in confidence and community.

And we, the professionals working with them, have been privileged to share this journey with them, we’ve had our eyes opened, our minds staggered and we’ve had our creativity and our communications stretched. I’m genuinely so proud of the young people, the supporting adults, Colin from the venue Bar Vibe and my fellow artists.

I’m looking forward to the final showcase event in May and will report it here.

Over the first few months of 2016 Shay the Poet has been busier than ever and things show no sign of letting up – which is exactly as I wanted it to be. Details of the various projects and events will appear here shortly but in summary they’ve included:

• The Stories We Could Tell Project
• Two workshops booked for Touchstones Creative Writing Group
• Booked for the celebratory return of Weaving Words when Rochdale Central Library reopens after the flood damage earlier in the year
• National Poetry Day bookings for a High School and for Oldham Library
• Several new workshops developed
• A booking to perform for the second year at Eroica Britannia in Bakewell, the countries number one festival of all thing cycling and all things vintage
• A series of public workshops in Uppermill
• I’ve released my book “Thinking Too Much” on Kindle and have ordered a second print run of the paper version
• I’ll be appearing (that surely can’t be the correct word) on Roche Valley Radio this weekend

There are lots of other really exciting projects in development and I’m still finding time to fit in some teaching in schools and colleges and particularly enjoying my freelance teaching with a special needs school in Stockport.

And of course my photography projects and classes are still developing – visit my website at www.imagesbyseamuskelly.uk for more details.

Keep checking back or watch my social media for more….

Finding that Lemn Sissay was leading a workshop in York provided the perfect incentive to head for a day out in the rich Viking, Roman and Tudor city; sights, shops, poetry and of course Betty’s Tea Room to finish the day.

After a trip down The Shambles, where for some
reason I had not previously
spotted the pictured cat, a jumble sale browse a few shops and a light lunch and off to the Unitarian Church; the venue for Lemn’s workshop. A combination of Google maps and spotting the man himself outside the church and we soon joined the group of waiting writers in the vestibule.

It wouldn’t be right to share the content of the Workshop but Lemn was a lovely host and facilitator and he soon had the whole group feeling at ease and before long we were all writing whilst listening to his unique style of tales, inspiration and tips. The work involved a simple rhyme scheme and with this in mind Lemn offered to be our rhyming dictionary for the session; not only does he have a massive wealth of rhymes and understanding of how words sound together but this also led to a fair deal of enjoyable and informative discussion.

What I can share is a little bit about what I gained from the session:

• A new poem – see picture below; I had the start of it on the day and 8 or so revisions later I have now read it publicly to a good reception.
• A new project – I had already written a small number of poems on a theme and had become a bit unsure about adding to them. After the workshop I am now clear that I will continue to add to that project and have since written another piece of what might form the basis of a small collection.
• A great day out with my wife Maggie with lots of chance to talk about those things we are passionate about.
• The chance to meet and talk to one of my poetic heroes Lemn Sissay
• More coals have been added to the fire that drove me to move from doing a bit of writing to being a poet and making my living from my creative work.

Here’s a picture of the work in earlier stages of progress before the final edits were done on my computer (Yes, I know you can’t read the words but it isn’t published yet).

Thinking Too Much A collection of Poems by Seamus Kelly

After the launch of Thinking Too Much, in October 2015, I was delighted to receive the following comments about the collections from James Nash; one of the North’s foremost poets and writers and a man who has been a great inspiration for my work:

“Seamus Kelly’s poetry is the poetry of journeys and places. Sometimes that place is the past and sometimes it is where nature and people intersect. But always it is written with a kind of passionate precision, and with great humanity.”

After the introduction the book continues with a quote from Pablo Neruda’s La Injustica which seemed appropriate for inclusion after the introduction; speaking as it does about discovering others through discovering oneself.

“Quien descubre el quien soy descrubrira el quien eres”


There are 34 poems in the book covering a wide range of issues from family, love, death and illness, to my own views on society and some of the things that are wrong with it. Writing about others and oneself is indeed a process of discovery and a collection is a way of sharing some of what we have learned along the way. Of course it isn’t all doom and gloom and there are amusing and hopefully inspiring tales in this short collection and hopefully readers might make a few discoveries of their own.

Finding out at the last minute that there was to be an open mic night in Littleborough at The Red Lion last night, 24th August, I finished my tea and hurried to get changed to see what was going on.

Arriving a few minutes after the start, I grabbed a Ginger Beer at the bar, and took a seat in the gap between readers. As I settled to listen to the next poet I found myself sharing a table with Pam Igoe Hall who I hadn’t met in a good few years since she was a regular at our Weaving Words writing group at Rochdale Library. Pam had taken a few years off from writing but is back with a vengeance and during the evening read two poems which struck a chord with the audience.

As well as a few seasoned regulars there were a good number of new faces around the room some of whom had never seen a poetry event before and one of those, Ian, even got up and read some classic poems.

The event was organised by Robin Parker, of Langley Writers, who read the story of Noah and his Ark with a new twist from his book, the Edenfield Scrolls.

Joe the Rochdale Ranter had a rant about Jeremey Kyle, and why not? Rhyming Ron should perhaps add a bit more alliteration and change his name to “Rather Rude Rhyming Ron” after performing two poems about the seedier side of life had the audience in stitches.

To finish the evening Norman Warwick gave a very powerful and emotionally charged rendition of his poem about the loss of his dear friend Townes Van Zandt – The Fade Away Diamond Time.

Into this mix during the first half I added some light amusement with “Different Dad” which you can read here. In the second half I was more serious with my poem about being lost in grief; “A Platform I Don’t Know” – that one you’ll be able to read in my soon to be launched book “Thinking Too Much”

You can read a little bit more about the book in my next post…..

The last few weeks have been particularly busy and varied on the creative working front: