Pie and Pea Supper

Lets have a pie and pea supper
a supper fit for a king
then after our pie and pea supper
i know a few songs we can sing

oh for a sing-a-long supper
think of the fun it will bring
we'll all be singing our hearts out
full of the joys of spring!

All Over The Place....

I seem to have been all over the place recently. I have been in schools in Blackpool,  Sheffield and up in the North East for the Northern Childrens Book Festival. I was in Walsend, Whitley Bay and Sunderland. I have got into takng snaps wiht my fancy new phone and trying to make little films of my trips. I'll have a go at doing one for the last trip. I like learning new things but these phones are like magic boxes and can do loads of stuff so there is a lot to learn. We never had computors and stuff like that when i went to school. Young people i see in schools are BRILLIANT at all that stuff like my sons are but me.....it takes time to sink in brother!!!!!! But i'm trying!! I have also been writing a lot and selling my new book POETRY BURP. I have been on BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio York waffling away about who knows what so its all been busy, but good fun. Today i went for walk in the woods and the leaves were golden on the floor as the sun splintered through the trees. Hang on a mo, i feel a poem coming on.....

Noises Through The Wall

Its like this...my room at home, where i spend a lot of time doing things poets do like staring out of the window, playing the guitar when i should be writing poems, watching load of loud rock n'roll videos on YouTube and generally pretending i'm working..we... this room THE IMAGINATION STATION is nextdoor to my sons bedroom. My sons Ben and Jack spend a lot of time in their own room doing kids stuff like nose picking and pillow fighting and they also play a lot of games on the XBox. So i hear lots of noises coming through the wall. At the moment they are playing Just Cause II. I asked them what its about and i got told that 'Its a bit like James Bond except you are a bad James Bond'. Anyway it all sounds dramatic and i wonder if, when i am lost in my own mind , dreaming poems up, the noises somehow affect what i write. I'll have to keep a chec k on that. If you read a poem i wrote somewhere called 'Bad James Bond', you'll know why.....

Busy Is Better Than Not Busy

Just looked at the blogaroo and the last one i did is ages ago - maybe when the dinosaurs were alive so..i think i'd better do one. Been all over the shop in October. It normally busy so thats all grand. Got a new book out, POETRY BURP did a week in Northern ireland -which was fantastic by the way, been doing schools all over from Bolton, Blackpool, Chesterfield, Leeds, Gateshead and Sheffield. The Sheffield school is called Nether Edge and i have been in a few times. Its a GREAT school full of great people who love their poetry and its always grand to go back. So yep, been busy driving and travelling all over. Actually my mate the robot man Andy is going to work in Thailand today so i'm giving him a lift - not to Thailand but to the train station. I'd love to work across the sea again these things just seem to appear out of the blue. Fingers crossed. So thats about it really, thats some of the stuff that i've been up to oh and writing of course, always the writing. I asked a class the other day what books were full of, i thought i was going to get words, like books are full of words but this girl had a fra better answer. She said that books are full of surprises!! So now you know. So when you are writing you have to come up with these surprises, you have to be a Suprise Maker!!

What I Do When I'm Not Doing What I Do....

Because this time of year can be quiet for me and i'm not going into so many school it means i have time to do other things. Here are some of the other things i've been dong. I have got a Blackberry and am trying my best to get better at using it. Its an amazing thing really, a magic gizmo,you can get apps for it, take pix and everything man!! I'll try and put sme photos up when i can. I have aso been doing a lot, no, a load of walking. I did the Calderdale Way, a 54 mile walk all around Halifax which was fantastic. I grew up in halifax but on the walk i saw parts of it i never knew were there, so that was great. and the sun shone for 4 days!! Today i did a bit of the Kirklees Way, another big walk all around Huddersfield. When i walk i think and when i think i make stuff up so walking is great for me, what wiv being a poet like innit!!And i have been writing as lot, infact my new book POETRY BURP should be out , touch wood, in a couple of weeks so thats always exciting. I also made another radio documentary for BBC Radio Leeds called Away With Words which got on radio 4, a national station. I was dead chuffed with it. So not visiting schools every day does mean i can do other things so its all grand. The school visits take off again in a week or with schools in Rotherham, Gateshead, Blackpool, Norton and Cookridge in Leeds then i go to Belfast in Northern Ireland for a week. So back on the road soooooon!!!!

Big Blue Boat

I wrote this poem cos i liked the title and i have had it floating around in my head for a while. The first version of the poem was longer but when i looked at it i thought that they were too many words - some words i didn't need - so i got rid of them and will save them and use them in another pome on another day.

Big Blue Boat

I dreamed i sailed on a big blue boat
i sailed across the sea
thats all this poem is about
that dream, that boat and me

Thats Poetry That!!!

So the London 2012 Lympix is over and done for another 4 years. I wasn't bovvered about it to be hinest but i really got into it. did you know that in the first ever Olympics in Greece poetry writing was one of the things that they did. Imagine that now, like mo farrar sitting down and writing a poem against the clock. One of the other things i liked was when someone did an amazing thing the commentator would say 'well that was just fantastic that, it was poetry'. Y'see when something is better than good its poetry. I've always said it!!