Hello again from London UK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” – Robert Frost

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.” – Virginia Woolf

“A poet can survive everything but a misprint.” Oscar Wilde 😉

Hello again from London UK,

Sorry, no poem today as I am not well at the moment. I have one in mind, though, so hopefully soon…

I always value reader’s comments and criticism; although I block them on the blogs, I can always  emailed at; rogertab@aol.com. I try to reply to all genuine emails, but please put ‘Poetry’ in the subject field or it may well end up in my spam folder.

Reader C. J. has commented with regard to my latest poem that “…if The Lie is meant to be a kenning, it isn’t because a kenning requires nine nines and a couplet and The Lie has only eight lines…” Many thanks for that, C. J. but it is not intended to be a kenning.  I have every respect for ‘form’ but am inclined to ignore it from time to time. 

Rightly or wrongly, I feel that couplets provide the reader (and poet) with a neat ending as well as helping to make clear what the poem is about and what prompted the writing of it in the first place.

On the subject of form, I should perhaps return to a frequent criticism regarding the absence of a period or full stop at the end of each stanza. I simply feel, as I have always felt since enjoying poetry even as a child, that it interrupts the flow of a poem; what is considered ‘grammatically correct’ is not always in a poet’s interest.

Anyone who has read any of my poetry volumes will know that, at the time, I tried using prepositions at the end of lines further flow; this was a misjudgement on my part which I have not repeated on my poetry blogs. 

C. J. also asks “… what prompted you to start up a gay as well as general poetry blog?”

Well, at the time there was not a lot of gay-interest poetry available. I wasn’t sure if there would be much interest out there. I also lacked self-confidence. A boost to my confidence came when I was privileged to participate in sculptor Antony Gormley’s ‘Live art” One and Other project on the 4th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square in 2009. It was my first public reading of my own poems and I included some gay poems; the audience below seemed to enjoy it and I went on to give other readings, mostly in public libraries here in London and around the country.

I hope to celebrate my 80th birthday in 2025 by giving a public poetry reading, but having been living with prostate cancer for some years now as well as other health issues that accompany the process of growing old, I am counting no chickens. 

Now, I am hoping to find a publisher for revised editions of my earlier collections. I have had to self-publish in the past because no UK publisher that I approached showed any interest, possibly because I insisted on including gay-interest as well as general poems. However, since the publication of my last collection, Tracking the Torchbearer in 2012, both general and gay poetry blogs have proven popular with readers; according to Blogger statistics, total views for the former now stands at nearly 210,00 and 160,000+ respectively. So, fingers crossed…

Many thanks as always for dropping by, folks,

Take care, stay safe and keep well,

Back again soon with a new poem,

Hugs,

Roger 

[Note: This post also appears on my gay-interest blog today] RT