Nightingales and other songs

It's been six months or so since I became a freelance poet/writer/tutor and while I am financially poorer I feel much happier and more autonomous, as if I am on the path I was meant to be. It occurs to me that part of growing older is understanding/knowing your self and who you are. Simple perhaps but a difficult awareness to achieve when you have not lived with yourself for very long. We are all of course multiple.. Anyhow, I thought I'd share a few self-promotional posts -

I was happy to be commissioned by the think tank Nesta to write a poem about the future of the internet. It was a topic I had to come to from many different angles until I could make something I was happy with in an artistic sense. While at points it felt quite difficult as this is not necessarily the area I normally write about, it was good for me to push myself and the exercise actually resulted in two poems - a prose piece I have yet to send anywhere and this published one -
 https://findingctrl.nesta.org.uk/text/first-lines/

It was a timely commission for me and at points I couldn't quite believe I was being paid to stare into space/ write poems as this was something I had dreamed about.

May I suggest you look through Nesta's book about the future of the internet, and not just the poem. It is fascinating and beautifully produced. I recommend starting with the funny timeline.

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I had a wonderful open-ended commission from the University of Liverpool to write a poem about a nightingale. This was a joy and I actually heard and saw some singing in the North Kent marshes on a 'field trip'. The poems were turned into beautiful postcards and are all interesting interpretations of our relationship with this most heavily freighted of poetic symbols. Beautiful bird; I keep daydreaming of its song. I have a six minute recording of the nightingale I heard but not sure how to put it on this blog. .You can listen to a wonderful recording here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK2_bcQcoD4
I've also written a short essay/piece on nightingales which I will share soon when it is published..

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Finally, here is a poem I wrote about a filthy little stream... https://wordsforthewild.co.uk/?p=5585

Thank you for reading  :-)