About Poetry
Alongside personal journalling and non-fiction writing, I enjoy engaging with poetry both as reader and poet.
Poetry is too multi-faceted for one definition. It distills ordinary experience whilst daring to tame the extraordinary; it brings new words to what we think we know and finds a language for what we have no words for. Poetry’s music is endless varied in sound, form and tone. It can delight our ears and help us see with fresh eyes. It can move, entertain and inspire.
Poetry’s capacity to capture intense emotion has made it a companion to many a traveller through tough times. I enjoy sharing what poetry offers with others, whether we are exploring its connections in a discussion group or practising its craft in a poetry writing workshop.
Poet in Residence
Since 2019, I have been Poet-in-Residence at Chester Cathedral - which become Poet-in-Exile for a season during the time of Covid lockdowns.
The privilege and challenge of being in this volunteer role is the freedom to shape it along the way. Over time I’ve been able to write poetry, run two Young People’s Poetry Competitions and an ongoing Poetry Discussion Group.
In October 2023, it has been a delight to host Canon Dr Mark Oakley’s lecture ‘Poetry: the Native Language of Faith.’
And of course I’ve been running writing workshops.
Joined-up writing
The poetry-writing workshop is in the Cathedral Library, a large room with tall windows, musty book-lined shelves, and sober episcopal portraits on its walls. Between glass cases containing the Charles Kingsley collection (the writer was once Canon here), ten of us sit round a modern table shaped like a Polomint.
Everyone is eager to write in this building. Someone describes the Cathedral as ’a contained vastness’; another speaks of the sense of being in the present moment but standing under ‘the weight of time.’ So we write about being here.
Later, we roam round the Cathedral building, looking for words and images that commemorate those remembered here in glass, in stone. We use our imagination to bring some of these characters to life in our own words, wondering what it would be like if they all could meet: Bishops, soldiers, local dignitaries, virtuous Eighteenth Century wives.
Though often a solitary activity, writing today has connected us to one another in this place, as well as to some who have been here before us.
Some Poems from the Residency
Saint Swithun was part of a series of poems for the Cathedral publication Living Lights. Each poem was based on a Saint depicted in the Cloister windows, and illustrated a different poetic form.
This poem is in the 7th Century Arabic verse form the ghazal. Each self-contained couplet verse looks at its subject from a different angle, rather than telling a story. We know little about Swithun, apart from the the legend that links him to rainy days, so a ghazal seemed a good route to take.
Saint Swithin
He asked for an outside grave under a pall of rain
with footsteps of folk pattering in a fall of rain.
As Bishop he had lavished banquets on the poor,
offered warmth and shelter from the maul of rain.
When they moved his remains back into God’s house,
all said it was a day of appalling rain.
Scant the facts of his life, opaque as a cloud
misted with tales of the wherewithal of rain.
Church-builder, life-mender, hear my prayer,
bless our parched land with a winding shawl of rain.
This is a ‘found’ poem, comprising different words and phrases I found written in different places around Chester Cathedral.
Ingredients Present
A Guide makes good use of time.
Do thou likewise.
What time do you wake up?
Arise and eat.
Set out to explore
through the black gate.
Mind the step.
Join in the conversation.
You can be part of it,
do not have to tell us your name.
Become a Chorister.
Only if competent.
Help us build.
Only if safe.
Please give generously,
exciting holiness.
Take off any shoes.
Two remain in this Chapel
God is worshipped
in this place,
the start or finishing place.
Share its peace;
earth below, stars above.
Enjoy the Deep.
Do not leave without praying.
Jesus heals everything,
originally handcrafted
to the glory of God -
no two are the same.
Walk straight ahead.
In the summer of 2023, the whole Cathedral Nave become the setting for the Chester Mystery Plays. Sunday worship moved to the South Transept.
As someone captivated by the play’s powerful drama, it felt strange to come to a service on the first Sunday on the spot where they had been performed.
Mystery Play: The Sunday After
The rising dead were a river of fire
coursing down the Nave
where today we sit in orderly ranks.
Here, Adam and Eve fled Eden,
air smoked with Lucifer’s bravado,
shimmered through the Agnus Dei, sorrow-song,
the agony of God’s Cross-bound Son.
Christ has died
Amongst this ensemble, random faces
of disciples, demons, angels.
Now we too are players,
screens displaying our liturgy-script.
On stage, costumed clergy enact the drama
where Christ climbed
to re-join the white-robed Godhead.
Christ is risen
Sharp screams of mothers bereft
by Herod’s slaughter, a far cry
from these docile lines, edging forward
to sip from the Eucharist cup.
Yet hidden losses, torn hearts
beat still into the silence,
yearn towards the mystery:
Christ will come again