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WHAT POETRY/POET AND/OR COLLECTION IS YOUR INSPIRATION?

This was a question I was recently asked to answer – on behalf of Wenlock Poetry Festival and their search for the second ever Shropshire Young Poet Laureate. It was one of several questions. The answers that I and other poetry lovers gave can be found on

http://www.wenlockpoetryfestival.org/laureate/

Unfortunately I got somewhat carried away –  there wasn’t enough room for the selection of poems that I wanted to share with everyone. So here they are now (one at a time because technology is not letting me lay them out as it should !!!)… Thank you poets xx

THE CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES for Shropshire Young Poet Laureate 2015 IS 5pm ON FRIDAY JANUARY 16TH 2015

 

When ice caps melt                      Brenda Read-Brown

 

It was funny at first, when a few,
Then many, waddled and cocked their way
Up Oxford Street. But soon, the penguins,
Especially the Emperors, blended with the
Bankers, and apart from complaints about
The odd rockery theft, we stopped paying attention.

It was different, though, when the polar bears
Arrived. We screamed, ran, threw the last lumps of
Rockery: even shot. The streets were bare
Except for restless squats of dirty fur.
But when freezers emptied, markets fell,
We ventured out into life again,

Trying to ignore the grubby thugs on skateboards,
Stolen from now timid youths.
We let them to the front of taxi queues;
Accepted only standing room on buses;
Shrugged at ransacked meat counters.
Some of us made friends; David Attenborough,

Particularly, seemed able to communicate.
Apart from complaints about the odd
Missing person, we stopped paying attention,
Until, on the Embankment first,
Small piles of feathers, black and white, were found.
It started with the penguins.

 

© Brenda Read-Brown 2012 from We’re all in this together – environmental poetry from the West Midlands (Offa’s Press). This poem is reproduced here with the kind permission of the poet.

 

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