Two groups of cyclists, a group,of walkers and lots of people to make up an audience enjoyed the special celebration at Healey Dell on 5th October 2013.

How many other poetry events have 10 attendees arriving by bicycle?

The event held in the Songsmith Solar Marquee saw live music and performances by 13 poets to celebrate the completion of a project which has seen a total of 40 poems installed on the Connect2 network throughout the borough of Rochdale. Enormous thanks to everyone who attended and to all the performers who were;

Sam Fisher, Robin Parker, Norman Warwick, Eileen Earnshaw, myself, Dave Davis, Lorraine Charlseworth, Marilyn, Cath Coward, Joe (Rochdale Ranter), Phil Hulme, John Leach and Yasir.

Thanks also to Andy Wiggins who came on the bike ride and wrote a short piece which I, as compere, had the privilege of reading on his behalf.

The event was organised by Cartwheel Arts and the Connect2Poetry project has been a collaboration between, Catwheel Arts, Rochdale Libraries Maskew Collection and CTC.

Today is National Poetry Day and that serves as a good prompt to get back to my blogs which have been sadly neglected for quite a time. Although not blogging I’ve still been writing so for my first post back I’m posting a group of 5 recent poems.

I was one of seven poets commissioned to write poems inspired by Rochdale’s Connect2 network as part of the Connect2 project. You’ll be able to read more about the project on the Connect2Rochdale blog soon. So for my post tonight here are my five commissioned poems. They relate to the area around Milnrow, Kingsway Business Park through to Broad lane with a reference to Rochdale town centre in the last poem.

This blog will contain a variety of my poems, some will be new ones as I finish them and some will be poems I have written previously.

My poetry is often written with performance in mind and I regularly perform at Write Out Loud venues in the North West of England. Have a look at www.writeoutloud.net for details of events etc.