Category: Unpublished

Published Poetry to raise money for Street Pastors

Published Poetry to raise money for Street Pastors

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog. I have started to make some collections of poetry available for purchase to raise money for Shrewsbury Street Pastors – volunteers who work, for nothing except a hot chocolate at 2am (!) from 10pm to 4am on Friday and Saturday nights (yes, overnight!) in Shrewsbury and other town centres across the UK to offer care to people out and about who get into difficulties. £2 from every sale goes to this charity, and each collection is priced at £5.

1 – Returning to the Father

These poems follow a journey from rebellion to realisation to reconciliation and returning to the Father.

Rembrandt’s famous painting of the parable of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen’s book The Return of the Prodigal Son, and the parable itself have been important sources for this work, and readers are directed to those works for further inspiration.

This volume of poems is now available to purchase for £5 (GBP) before postage. I contribute £2 (GBP) to Street Pastors, Shrewsbury, from each sale.

If you would like to purchase, please follow this link

Also available…

2- First Words

First Words explores questions about life, about time and relationships, youth and age, scepticism and belief, questions and faith. 

They are the poems of a searching spirituality, moving from uncertainty towards maturity.

I contribute £2 (GBP) to Street Pastors, Shrewsbury, from each sale.

If you would like to purchase, please follow this link

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3 – Songs of Gladness, Songs of Pain

Songs of Gladness, Songs of Pain is a modern rendering of twenty-nine different Psalms, ancient texts that speak of human struggle to understand and relate to God.

Like the Psalms, these poems seek to understand evil and violence in the world, searching for peace and meaning, searching for joy and gladness in the midst of pain.

I contribute £2 (GBP) to Street Pastors, Shrewsbury, from each sale.

If you would like to purchase, please follow this link

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All Is Light

God’s love

Reaches back to the past

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However empty

Of belief

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And forward

To a future

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Alive

With the certain

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Uncertainty

Of grace

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So all is light

Flowing

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Before the glowing

Eternal face.

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Image by Kurt Persson from Pixabay

Research Poetry

A few years ago, I noticed that I was getting inspired to write by what I read.  This is not an uncommon experience for writers, of course, and at its worse it is called “plagiarism”!

Hoever, T.S. Eliot wrote that:

“…we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of … work may be those in which the dead poets…assert their immortality most vigorously”

I wasn’t just reading poetry; I was reading about spirituality.  It was helping me personally, but it was also stimulating me to write.

I have subsequently been fascinated to learn more about creativity, and how creativity is something developed and worked at, as well as the more common idea that it is spontaneous inspiration.

Putting these ideas together, I embarked on a structured approach to creativity – if that doesn’t sound like a contradiction!  And it is a habit I have kept up to this day.

I read a little each day, and stop when I find a thought stimulating.  I often find that the words I have read are quite poetic, or potentially poetic at least, and they give me a springboard for my own writing.  In 2018 I decided to call this approach “Research Poetry”, hence the title of this post.

I then try to gather poems into collections organised by their inspiration (I call these writers my “inspirers”, and there is a link to posts about them at the top of my home page):.

For example, “The Flowering of the Poverello”, from where this blog gets its name, was inspired by “The Little Flowers of St. Francis” plus some paintings of scenes from his life.  “Notes to Nouwen” has been inspired by various books by Henri Nouwen…and so on.

If you have read this post, I wonder what inspires you?

Are you also inspired by reading?

And if you are a writer…Do you think you could be inspired in a more structured way by reading?  Or do you follow a different discipline to help you be creative?

I would be fascinated to hear about your experience.

Createeachnewday

Life Steps Forward

Enter by mystery

Not problems to be solved

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But gracious portals

Places for the soul

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To journey through

Understanding more

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Their beauty

Their power to heal

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As life steps forward

From grace to grace.

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Inspired by https://alexandrianorthodoxy.com/2019/08/08/the-trinitarian-foundation-of-creation-and-salvation/

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Image by Stephanie Bertot-Molion from Pixabay