Ginge Reads

Photo by Plush Design Studio from Pexels Last night I tore out all the poems that I wrote about you and made them into paperchains. Hours of the night threaded together with your name to decorate the blues. Hanging from the chandelier twisting around table legs collecting on the sill. P apery memories gone soggy with salt water. Your face, so many times in black and white, skipping through the rhythm and humming indifference. In the morning the pages were clear, shaken from the shackles with glue that could not hold N ow the broken chains fall at my feet .

Simon Armitage (2009) photo by Alexander Williamson via Wikimedia Commons After 10 years writing poetry for her country, Carol Ann Duffy has finally passed the baton over to Simon Armitage as he is elected to be Britain’s new Poet Laureate. A truly deserved selection. Yet with the recent hand-over, it is fair to say that there has been controversy in the poetic world of late. The origins of the laureateship stem way back to 1616, when Ben Johnson was afforded a pension by the state, but the first official holder of the title was John Dryden, appointed by Charles II in 1668. The elected poet has no statutory duties but must create verse to mark significant events in Britain, such as royal weddings or memorial celebrations (although over recent decades the role has moved much more to promote poetry itself). The prestigious title also affords them a cask of sherry and an annual fee of £5,750. Until Duffy’s predecessor, Andrew Motion, limited his tenure to 10 years, the positio...

We planted the sun in the horizon, A hazy blend of yellows and blues, Gently cupped the soil over it And watched it bloom into a new day. Now enchanting little raindrops of light Bud on the surface Like promises for the coming years. Something infinite will take root here: A future, and in it, we are together. Remember that we and Mother Nature are co-creating this vivid dream. Let's not kill it. Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Monkey see, monkey do. Are you related? A copy of a copy, a duplicate me Blink twice, No, you're not imagining it. Shadow and brightness of the mirror view Those slightly distinct reflections And such perfect impressions In a synchronised pair. One and the same but nothing alike, Double up She's always right If I pinch you can she feel it?

The Chandos Portrait of William Shakespeare ,  attributed to John Taylor As a university student of English Literature and an avid book fan, it is hardly shocking to reveal that I truly enjoy the works of William Shakespeare. His use of language and metre is revolutionary, and the plays themselves make up an integral part of not only English literature and its progression, but that of drama and performance too. However, this does not mean that he is everyone’s cup of tea, and certainly it doesn’t justify forcing his writing onto young people in education. Currently, Shakespeare is a compulsory element to the school curriculum, whereby students must study at least one of his most famous plays (usually Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth ) for use in coursework and exams. Yet I cannot help but think that this is quite unjust. In a world preaching total inclusion, gender equality and religious acceptance, why do we continue to present the horrors of misogyny, marginalised voices...

Photo by Rakshith Reddy on Unsplash Light glints down on indigo bunting Burning bright on a wire And I watch As the sun warms her wings, Her tiny frame of vivid colour Soaking up the day. She greets the sun anew,  Like an old friend rarely seen But loved always. She leaps. Enclosed in lightness of flight, She has never owned shadow And takes to the skies with arrow grace. Every move she makes Reverberates like a musical note from a key Privileged enough to have been played. She puffs her front and sings like she ought. Would she sing for me, If she got caught?

If the world is my oyster then I must have an allergy to shellfish. And I don't mean to sound a cynic, Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash But my head is a prison with just the occasional conjugal visit. So I don't want to waste myself with things much bigger than those on the bookshelf. Been there, done that, but the t-shirt was just too tight For a loner with paperback eyes. Now I’m left To think and thoughts and less wuthering of heights Where conversational stares can’t hurt me. Crack the spine. I’m running through pages, splitting their seams, Stalking fiction and forgetting dreams. Paper-faced friends with inky backs are enough to escape the world and its crap While the monsters of the mind Refuse to fall quiet. I ’m not waving, I’m drowning, Frowning, clowning, counting down the days, While stone cold stoned, the world watch away.

You can tell an awful lot about a person by their shoes.  I barely did much wrong, just a bit of lifting here and there but enough to put me in trouble. Grey never was my colour. And yet here I am, shivering on the bottom of a bunk bed with my toe poking out of a hole in my right sock.  Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash A pair of Jordans snore above me. A white base with red and black streaks across the tongue and midsole. No one knows what he did – no one’s brave enough to ask. But he’s been here that long you might call the great dent in his mattress ‘memory foam’. A couple of white Nikes follow him around, occasionally punching spider web cracks on a wall that looked at them the wrong way. They’re alright, really, once you get over the low glances.  Six doors down, a pair of muddied, navy trainers with no name. He doesn’t say much, just mumbles to his game of solitaire and whispers when he needs a hit of china white. Fila is in next doors cell, plain whit...

The poet laureate of Great Britain since 2009, Carol Ann Duffy is a particularly noteworthy writer as the first woman, Scott and first openly gay individual appointed to the role. Much of her work centres heavily on themes of love and relationships, possibly as a result of her own experiences as a homosexual writer constantly in the public eye, and nothing epitomises this more than her 2005 collection, Rapture . Comprised of 52 love poems, Duffy traces the course of a relationship from infatuation, through suspicion, heartache and finally to death in one of her most moving shows of literary talent to date. As the end of her time as Poet Laureate draws near, it seems only fitting that this, arguably one of her best collections (and winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize), should be brought into the spotlight once again. Carol Ann Duffy Photo via Wikimedia In truth, not many people like reading poetry. It brings out the worst in writers: a pretentiousness not to be found in novels. They ...

Photo by Eugenia Maximova on Unsplash Famed is her beauty but what good Is beauty when trapped in a mirror? The paint on her lips as red as blood, She draws nearer. She touches finger to rose-dusted cheek and grazes porcelain skin, In finest tones she can speak But no beauty within. A clamp around her lashes On her lids unnatural hues And on her pulse points there’s lashings Of Chanel, overused. Love is the enemy of a sculpted face Its touch simply too strong For a brittle mind to embrace For too long. So she sits and stares… The fanatical fairest of them all With hourglass heart and eyes of pearl. The mirror mirror on the wall A cold replication of a vainglorious girl. 

It was the perfect spot, really. Under the bridge between the two stations with the little Tesco express tucked into the side. The hustle and bustle of the city couldn’t help but pass by him on the daily, while the heavy redbrick that he leant against kept enough wind off his back. Of course, there was no escaping the chill of a concrete floor, but he’d been out here that long that the numbing sensation to his rear was more of a familiar friend.  Photo by Cory Woodward via Unsplash Armed with a week-old paper cup from Costa, he slowly emerged from his ragged sleeping bag as the arrival of the first train signalled 6:30am. A stranger had given him his makeshift duvet on a particularly bitter day back in November when the rain fell sideways through the bridge. Probably just an old bit of camping equipment that had been sat in the garage for the past 2 years next to the forgotten gold clubs and mouse-nibbled jump cables. Tracksuit hood pulled up over his head, he crossed his l...