Tune in to the Evening Show with Martyn Williams tomorrow evening to listen to my new sonnet about the importance of music.
The picture shows my guitar, which I took out of storage last week after not looking it for about four years and it still plays beautifully. I’ve been brushing up my ukulele playing for the last four years so picking up the guitar again felt quite natural.
I’ve added a shop page to my website to reflect that I’ve just had a fresh delivery of poetry chapbooks from the lovely Paul at Bearded Badger Publishing.
Although most of the poems haven’t been shared on here, the book includes some of the poems from this blog, including ‘He loved one thing’ and Pantry. Most of the poems are in some kind of form, hence the title un(in)formed.
You can read ‘Weighted’, a sonnet, on the shop page.
You bud butterflies in purple haze. Bees speak your name, bud, and to spell you is to know you intimately, to smell you is to be 50ft high, climbing over our garage. You bud, and – bud, I need to chop you down, but you may be our only hope.
This is my offering for the #RedSkySessions series 4, ep 1, second exercise, which I am slowly imbibing.
Here’s a photo of my two books I took for my Instagram because I could. They came out 22 years apart and I am very proud to have had the chance to publish both of them. un(in)formed is available at https://www.beardedbadgerpublishing.com/online-store/UN-IN-FORMED-by-Becky-Deans-p311736067 along with other chapbooks in the series from Sonia Burns, Camille McCawley and Kevin Qweaver Jackson.
Please show some love to Paul Handley’s new press, Bearded Badger Publishing, and buy the sett – including Rory Aaron’s new collection, doglike, and the new novel by Drew Gummerson, Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel.
Drew Gummerson’s book is out now. The two poetry chapbooks can be in your hands by 22 April 2021.
When I got my first job as a copywriter, I gave my boss my novella, but he made the comment that copywriters needed to be poets rather than prose writers.
I have found the poets need to be copywriters as well. It helps pay the bills and I like doing it.
Since graduating I have worked for so many clients directly, through agencies (mainly London agencies), and through freelance assignments. These clients include Dell, the Treasury, NHSBT (NHS Blood and Transplant), BMW, Oris, DBS (Singapore). As well as writing web-based and print content, I proofread, transcribe, translate or edit translations, compile social media posts.
If DH chose a musical instrument, surely he would pick a sax? I wrote this unofficially for the 2018 Clarinet and Saxophone Society and put in on Instagram. It looks like there might be some research in Lawrence and jazz.
BBC Derby put waves behind this, and I did initially record this with waves in the background, but they weren’t my own waves. If we ever get to go on holiday again, and there’s a quiet day, I will record this again by the sea.
Meditation on the A38
Please note that this comes from a poet and saxophone teacher who used to do guided meditations in yoga. I am not a qualified therapist of any kind.
Today the poetry showcase, featuring work from nine poets, is finally available. Go to beardedbadgerpublishing.com to download the full sampler, with contributions from Rory Aaron, me, Kevin Qweaver Jackson, Jack Cunnington, Oliver Cowley, Cullen Marshall, Sonia Burns, Camille McCawley and Anita Jackson.
Our journeys might be different, but our love of words brings us together.