"Painting is silent poetry and poetry is painting that speaks". - Plutarch As both an artist and a poet, this quote from Plutarch resonates deeply within me and has led to a richer understanding of the creative processes involved in both poetry and painting and the similarities I experience in making anything. There is a transference of skills, even in the practical world creativity is there. When I first started writing poetry I thought that it should always rhyme and r

"Poetry is ordinary Language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and bloodied with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words" - Paul Engle Paul Engle puts it so well and many fellow and sister poets will understand what he means. To the readers, the poem sits blandly on the page with a modest invitation to read it. Perhaps they will, and savour it, understand it and be moved by it if it touches something of their own experienc

"Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure." - Mark Strand Artificial light is everywhere, we're obsessed with it. Orangey sodium street lights, increased lighting in advertising, football stadii and shops lit up all night, everywhere we go in towns and cities, the light is relentless. We prefer houses with large windows and many people consider any weather other than bright sunshine to be bad. Before we had so much technology most of us l