It is already June and I have been meaning to write more but I seem to keep getting lost on the way to the keyboard. Opening it up only to read the words of others and forgetting what I had to say. Couldn’t have been that important.
I have been reading a lot. Books that make feel inferior as a writer but make me feel alive for having read them. Sometimes it is good to feel in awe. Sometimes awe is close to jealousy. Some one recently told me that it is actually healthier to acknowledge jealousy than pretend it doesn’t exist. It may be telling you something. It may encourage you to try to do something a little bit differently. I have been thinking about that a lot. I haven’t done anything with the idea yet, but it is there and I will let it percolate a little. And one day, I may reflect and do something with that.
For now I have been luxuriating in the talents of others, using books as a lovely escape from a world that is not always fair, on both micro and global levels.
My favourites recently have been
‘s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ and ‘There are Rivers in the Sky’, which are both astonishing. I found the first book in a second hand bookshop and was instantly hooked once I started reading it. I was annoyed that I had not read it sooner. On finishing it I instantly went out to buy ‘There are Rivers in the Sky’. Both books are so rich and beautiful and so many lines that are utterly beautiful. I also learned about elements of history and science that the book covered as part of the reading experience. These books are head and shoulders the best books I have read in years.
Another, very different, book I couldn’t wait to turn over the pages of was Zena Barrie’s unqiuely surreal and hilarious ‘Two Similar Looking Men with Umbilical Hernias’. I have not read anything like it before but I would happily read more like it. I had heard Zena read a part of this when she headlined a poetry night that I co-hosted in 2024. It made me howl laughing and I was itching to read the final article when it came out. The other short stories in the the collection are brilliantly bonkers.
Non fiction has also been a good way of keeping away from my phone a little longer. Teaching me that learning is ageless and how much you can learn if you PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN MORE. Non fiction shows me time and time again how much a human can experience in a lifetime. How inventive humans can be. How cruel. How fragile our planet is. How fragile peace is. How little we all will ever know. How hard people work to help us understand a fraction of it all. How we find it so hard to learn from history. How much history has been destroyed. How many patterns and repetitions are in everything. How many things need fixed. Comparison is the thief of joy and the counting of blessings, depending on what you are reading.
Careless People was a book that let me see more of the story behind my phone. IT was more eye opening than I expected. And I expected it to be eye opening. I recommend reading it. I also don’t think we should be giving our passport details to get verified and it has made question the quest to ‘go viral’ more than ever. To what end?
When I go back online I see people share screenshots of ‘X’ posts, which I deleted last summer. I had around 3.5k followers and some lovely connections were made there over the years, but I deleted in a heartbeat the day EM said civil war was inevitable in the UK. It read as if he would be pleased to see that. I did not want to see any more of his words or his hateful ideas. Of course I still do see them. It is impossible to have a phone or read some news without his influence infiltrating. But not viewing them direct from the horses mouth is my version of self care.
My phone keeps running out of memory and it can take hours to clear space. Sometimes that means I am looking at the past in a way that is not normal. A bunch of emotions in digitised form that I have been carrying in my handbag, pocket, hand for far too long. I promise myself I will delete more as I go along, but who has time? I spend hours unsubscribing but the inbox is never empty of some deal, some small discount, some new seasonal promotion. So no, I do not want my receipt to be sent by email.
My phone also tells me how little we learn from history. How creative, ridiculous, funny, hateful, resourceful, busy, productive, distracted, hopeful, charitable, envious, egotistical, self deprecating we can be. How inane the search for attention can be. How it seems to work. How some people like to start an argument. How it seems to work. How people seem to have answers to questions we never even knew we had.
My phone advertises things I think I will like. Or need. It thinks I need more make up and to do join exercise groups for women over 40. I don’t. It thinks I want to see poetry and it is right.
After seeing a post on instagram I grabbed a ticket went to see a poetry show that opened floodgates I had not even realised that I had been managing. The poets I trusted my emotions to that evening were Kate Ireland and Harry Baker. Both shared beautifully vulnerable insights into their world that opened up little portals into my own interior memory maps. Kate’s poems to her Gran and her Brother were packed with a realistic affection. Somehow finding words that express the often unsaid. Harry’s poem ‘Trying’ broke me in a cathartic way. I sat between two groups of people, on my own, sobbing, regretting putting on mascara and eyeliner. I don’t want the half time lights to come up before I had fixed my teary eyes. I am still glad I saw the poets. I always am.
Talking of poets who have made me cry (in the cathartic way), a poet I saw earlier in 2025 released a book that I was delighted to read. Antony used to perform at spoken word nights in Manchester that I went to. Then, one day, he made some poems to dance to and people danced. His poems, now songs, started to get played on the radio. And then, one day, Lauren Laverne played one of his songs as I was driving to work over the Barton Bridge in Manchester. I kind of screamed with joy for Antony. A huge moment. Fast forward around 2 or 3 years and there have been many more poems to dance to and he has released a book with Faber Alt. The book is beautiful and takes time to ‘explode the view’ on the lyrics of his debut album, ‘The Service Station at the End of the Universe’.
A roadmap filled with imagination and hope is my kind of roadmap.
One final book for this for the literary was this utterly beautiful book by Ocean Vuong. I haven’t read his work before but knew it would be a poetic masterpiece from what I have read about him and this did not disappoint. Some phrases just made me gasp at how perfectly expressed they were.
The world is a hard place sometimes, but beautiful books are a joy that can remind us that we are connected and that if we are lucky enough to get glimpses of hope or joy, to grab them, and stuff the memories of them into your pockets and make more when you get any chances to.
Thank you for reading Poems and That. Sometimes I write about what I have learned from sharing my own poetry and sometimes, like this article, I write about something else (and that). If you are interested in my poetry, I have a collection available on books.by that is raising money for Choose Love and Refuge.
Such a great read. Lovely to hear from you xx