Barn Owl Poem in Reach Poetry #219

Barn Owl

I am grateful to editor, Ronnie Goodyer, of Indigo Dreams Publishing for including my poem, 'Barn Owl, Flatford', in the December 2016 issue of Reach Poetry. Like most poets I respond to what I see as well as to what I feel, and I well remember the thrill back in 2012 of watching the owl swooping over the snow in this landscape known so well to John Constable.  

Flatford Mill

The photos below were the best I could manage at the time. As you can see, the light had all but gone. But there is something magical about Barn Owls in the snow! 

Matthew Stewart's Best U.K. Poetry Blogs of 2016

New Vistas (boardwalk to the bird hide, Tregaron, Wales)

It is the season of lists and annual reviews, and I am delighted and honoured to find that this blog has a mention in the Rogue Strands line-up of Best U.K. Poetry Blogs of 2016. Thank you so much to Matthew Stewart for this inclusion.

Thank you, Matthew, as well, for drawing my attention to the other blogs in the list. I have followed some of these with interest for a while, but the others will open up new vistas and provide fresh paths of poetic exploration in the days to come.

P.S. I cannot decide whether this is related or a bit 'off-topic', but I have just seen this list of favourite 2016 poetry book covers (I believe most, but not all, are North American) on C.A. LaRue's Bonespark blog. It may be of interest to you, as it was to me.  

Zoomorphic's 'Driftfish' anthology - edited by Susan Richardson and James Roberts

Driftfish is a new anthology of poetry and prose about marine wildlife. But let's be more specific: the book is 'dedicated' (and I seem to hear a double-entendre) to marine wildlife, as it says on the Zoomorphic site.

Poetry editor, Susan Richardson, and prose editor, James Roberts, have produced a fine publication that not only looks and feels good, but is also packed with vibrant words and exquisite images evoking the creatures of our fragile, and often threatened, marine environments. I am delighted that my poem, 'Quills and Spills', has been included.

The volume was launched last weekend in Brighton and is available for online purchase from this page of the Zoomorphic site. It could be just the gift you were hoping to find...

• Zoomorphic (the online literary journal 'in celebration and defence of wild animals')