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:

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.

And the songbirds always break through

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.