This wasn’t going to be a detailed retrospective of ‘my poetry year’ – for several reasons. Firstly, it seemed self-indulgent, given the current state of the world, to focus on my comparatively insignificant achievements. Secondly, I found I had far less to write about, in terms of poems published and events in which I participated, during 2023 … compared with previous years. Thirdly, given that second reason, I wanted to focus more on the year ahead … and that included writing more poems, rather than self-congratulatory blog posts and status updates. That renewed focus would also include making more submissions in 2024 than I did in 2023. This determination (not a resolution!) came after a ‘serious talk with myself’ about wasting time.

So, what was I proud of achieving, in poetry terms, in 2023, and, more importantly, who do I want to thank for ‘making poetry things happen’ for me last year? Well, I was very pleased to have a poem accepted for Prole 34, for which I thank the editors, Brett Evans and Phil Robertson. The poem, ’Either Or, Both And’, skirted around the trans topic, thinking back half a century to when attitudes to gender were quite different from what they are now. So, it was a risky poem to have written, and a risky poem for the editors to have accepted, which makes me doubly grateful. Copies of the magazine are available here: https://prolebooks.co.uk/ I checked back and discovered it was the tenth poem I’ve had accepted by this consistently high quality literary journal since my first submission to Prole in 2015. Thank you, Brett Evans and Phil Robertson.

Another outlet for some of my ‘riskier’ poems, over several years, has been Visual Verse. As someone who is particularly inspired by ‘the visual’ – and who is a keen photographer – Visual Verse has offered a regular prompt for my poetry. Making a tally, it surprised me to find that twenty of my poems have been published there during the last six years. Alas, Visual Verse closed in October, after a decade of inspiring poets to write in ‘rapid response’ to the image of the month. I’d like to record here, a big ‘Thank you’ to the editors, for the opportunity they provided each month. I valued the opportunity to write in response to some astonishing images over the years,  prompting some of my more surreal and often contentious poems – written and submitted within an hour, so not allowing the luxury of much time for reflection or self-editing, doubling the riskiness! I was extra pleased to have several poems in it last year, delighted to find my name alongside much better poets than I, including those who have, over the years, become friends. January found my offering alongside wonderful poems by Rishi Dastidar, Martyn Crucefix and George Colkitto. I equally enjoyed reading poems by poet-friends, Angie Holden and Pat Edwards in Visual Verse last year. My riskier poems included ‘The Bigger Picture’ which touched on slavery, ‘On the Job Training’ which ventured into policing and gender issues, ‘Conspiracy’ in the September edition and ‘Come-uppance under Construction’ in October, which hinted at political hubris. This was my last submission to Visual Verse and I was very glad to ‘go out on a high’ – with a sonnet! I’m seriously going to miss this opportunity to respond to an astonishing image each month but I am delighted that the vast collection of VV poems and images is being taken over by the University of Newcastle. As their website explains, https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ncla/visual-verse/, Visual Verse was founded in 2013 by publisher Kristen Harrison at The Curved House, writer and activist Preti Taneja, now Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and British designer Pete Lewis. A big thank you to these exceptionally inspiring and inspirational people.

Another publisher to which I am indebted is Yaffle Press, and I’m glad to count Gill and Mark Connors as friends, thanks to social media and video-conferencing. Their workshops over Zoom are as exceptional as their energy and productivity. I was thrilled to have a poem (‘Away From It All’) longlisted in the Yaffle Prize in 2023 and I’m delighted that my poem will be included in the Yaffle ‘Whirlagust’ competition anthology being published this year. 

Another book which will be published in 2024 is the Wee Sparrow Poetry Press ‘Ourselves in Rivers and Oceans’ anthology. I was pleased that my poem ‘Green Turtle’ was accepted for the book. This poem had been previously published by ‘The Blue Nib’ on-line, but since the unarchived closure of that outlet, the poem had been in limbo. I’m glad it is being ‘resurrected’ in this anthology, and that it will be alongside poems by poet-friends, including Jenni Wyn Hyatt and Maggie Mackay.

I can’t conclude this record of 2023 without thanking Simon Williams for his Poem A Day group on Facebook which was open, again, in April and September 2023. I also need to thank all the other participants for their comments on poems and suggestions. I’m grateful to have two months’ worth of poems drafted, most of which remain unfinalised and unpublished, and hence playing a big part in my determination to be more diligent in 2024. I’d better get cracking on finding homes for those poems before next April’s PAD comes along!

Lastly, I remain indebted to poet friends locally, especially members of Cheltenham Poetry Society which has now been dual-badged as a Stanza. As the Stanza representative in the county, and as a former Chair of CPS, I was delighted that members of the society unanimously agreed to this ‘alliance’! But mostly, I am grateful to them for their friendship and rigorous feedback on poems during monthly workshops. I am especially indebted to CPS Chairman Roger Turner, Michael Newman, David Ashbee, Stuart Nunn, Sheila Spence, Robin Gilbert, Nick Sheppard and Dan Mountain. I look forward to another great year of workshops … and, I hope, another annual Awayday writing retreat … in 2024.

That’s enough of the ‘boastful post’ I said I would not be writing this year! But, without writing all this, I would not have been able to record my thanks to the editors at Prole, Yaffle, Wee Sparrow and Visual Verse, and the many, many poetry friends I have made, in real life and on-line, during the ten or twenty years I have got to know them, and as we have written, workshopped and submitted our work, together. Thank you. Thank you.