poems & gardens

 My poem feels good in translation I always feel honoured when someone reads one of my poems. There are so many other things they could be reading, other things they could be doing. But for someone to translate a poem... How closely they must have studied it! How many times they must have read each line. How they must have weighed up meanings, associations, sounds and shapes. A thoughtful translation is like a love letter to a poem. And my poem is flattered. This thoughtful German translation of 'Sack of Night' was created by Lyam Bittar. You can find him  here . Nacht im Gepäck TRANSLATION BY LYAM BITTAR In diesem Beutel hier aus mondgewobenem Stoff findst du alles, das blüht, das schimmert oder seufzt das pirscht, das singt, das schwirrt sobald das Tageslicht der Dämmerung weicht Komm, halt’s Ohr an sein zuckendes Gewebe und erzähl mir, was du hörst, ist’s eine Melodie aus Tau ein Zwitschern, Rufen, Bellen, Klickern oder gar Gebrüll? Hörst du es hüpfen, pfeifen, zirpen, stöb

'Little girl holding plasticine' Image by Nenad Stojkovic  ( CC licence 2.0 ) On Tuesday 10th October 2023, some of the 16 poets who have responded to my ' Unfinished Sonnet ' challenge will be reading their finished sonnets at City Voices in Wolverhampton. A reminder of the first two and a half lines: Unfinished Sonnet by Ros Woolner She thinks she’s firm. Says Sorry, not tonight . And he thinks Cool. She just needs softening up – like plasticine. A little squeeze… (from Earth Walker , Offa’s Press 2023) Come and hear some of the unexpected responses!  There are poems that rhyme and poems that don't, poems set in bedrooms, a restaurant, a hospital ward, a music room and a courtroom. Poems in which he gets his way and poems in which she gets hers, and some in which what the two of them want or don't want is not at all what you might expect! City Voices with David Fletcher, Ros Woolner’s ‘Unfinished Sonnets’, Kuli Kohli plus Jeff Phelps who’ll be

  I will be reading from Earth Walker at: ‘City Voices’ on Tuesday 9th May 2023 with Fraser Scott, Liz Parkes, Roger Noons at the Lych Gate Tavern, 44, Queen Square, Wolverhampton, WV1 1TX, 7.30-9pm. Tickets £4 on the door.   ‘Country Voices’ on Saturday 20th May 2023 with Kerry Hadley-Pryce and Paul Francis at the Water Rat, Buildwas Road, Ironbridge, TF8 7BJ, 2.30-4pm. Tickets £5 on the door.  

 ( P)review of Earth Walker by Paul Francis : Earth Walker is the lone survivor from an alien planet, calmly reporting back on weird phenomena. Ros Woolner can create a myth from a casual remark, and this collection offers a range of surreal landscapes. Radiators in the Desert recounts a detailed fantasy, while also mocking its narrator’s confident self-delusion: “I know just what to do.” These poems provide a varied chorus of voices - gardener, truckdriver, walker, absent-minded aunt - and an impressive technical range which takes in pantoum and nursery rhyme, haibun and golden shovel, while also exploring a spectrum of freer forms. “Hey, Death” is a brilliant title, and her dialogue with the Pyro salesman is brilliantly inventive. Ros Woolner adopts a variety of tones, but is never obscure, pretentious or dull. She starts and ends with the two sonnets which came first and third in the Guernsey competition of 2021. They could have been written by different poets – a feminist fable a

My new poetry collection from Offa's Press is out this month.  Meet Earth Walker: Cover art by Clare Wassermann Design by Alex Vann

I'm very excited that one of my gardening poems won the 2021 Poems on the Move competition run by the Guernsey Literary Festival and judged by Kate Clanchy, who said:  "Best of all, I like the unexpected: I had never read a poem about feminism and hedge trimming before, and in the end, that supplied our winner." Pruning the laurel Three points of contact with the tree, the way my mother taught me: two feet, one hand, one free to hold the saw. A smell of bay leaves now, pale sawdust on my clothes like flour, the thump as each branch hits the ground. I’m high enough to see across five gardens: wheelbarrows and washing lines, a football goal, a Wendy house. My neighbour steps outside. Where’s hubby then? he asks, his meaning clear. Things must look different from down there. I guess I seem quite small to him, my saw no bigger than a bread knife. Not sure , I say, my eyes on what I’m doing ­– one hand on the saw, three points of contact – What did you want him fo