I should have taken that course,
the one with the guy
who builds drystone walls up north
for the farmers who have to maintain
things the way they’ve always been.
A bit like how I’m still trying
to keep this how it was
when you laid each slab in place
one, against the other,
so clever with your fingers,
finding the flattest stones,
the edges most like jigsaw pieces,
and stacking the pile
till it looked like a skyscraper
even if it always was only a folly.

I’ve just taken part in Caroline Bird’s Brave Writing poetry workshop, so I was a little worried I’d be all poet’d out by the time I got round to the DVerse prompt for this evening. It was an amazing workshop and I feel like a got so much out of it, much as I did with the workshop I did last year run by Mark Pajak. Workshops are a great way to improve your poems and your craft.

Also, my poem When Medusa Goes Shopping went live on The Daily Drunk today! I think this is the first poem I’ve had published in 2020. After writing my collection I felt a bit like I’d run out of poems, and it’s only been in the last couple of months that I really started got the fire back in my belly when it comes to writing.

Since tonight’s prompt is Follies, I’d like to mention Hawkstone Park Follies. It’s a lovely site in Shropshire, built originally by the Hill family, and a local tourist attraction. The family built it as a pleasure garden (eighteenth century gardens designed for noble families to go walking in) and as a result the Follies boast fantastic sandstone caves, a hermitage, and the obelisk which is not actually an obelisk but a monument to the supposed first protestant mayor of London. (Supposed, the claim is a little contested). For those who enjoy walking it’s a fantastic place to visit (though only open between 1st July and 1st November). I’d highly recommend not doing it dressed as the Easter Bunny however. There are some steep bits.