Books

Email me if you would like to order any book. Contact email address is on the Contact page. ‘Crossing the Sahara By Scooter’ is available directly from chipmunkapublishing.co.uk.

Coming soon – the paperback version of crossing the sahara by scooter is nearly ready. You can order it from me by e-mail for £10 or through chipmunkapublishing.co.uk. 300 poems on a journey through mental illness following a map of faith.

Tales of the Holy Grail
A set of five stories

The fourth Grail story is now ready. It is called ‘My Brother’s Story’ and looks at the idea the Jesus may have married Mary Magdalene in a traditional first century Jewish wedding.

The final Grail story is finished. Carol Elstrick is working on a critique of Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings for an exhibition in Venice. But she is haunted by the threat (?) of Opus Dei.This is a true story woven into a fiction. Who was the real Leonardo Da Vinci? The story looks at the evidence over the hype.

So there is a set of five Holy Grail Stories: The Golden Rainbow, From Haifa to Milford Haven, Jones the Story, My Brother’s Wedding and The Real Da Vinci which provide a multi-faceted look at the modern Grail myth.

Two new stories separate from the Grail series are ‘A Spanner in the Works’ and ‘I Told You So’. A look at karma in everyday life, the first tracks good fortune in adversity and the second questions the intellectualism of the New Age. Do you need need to know your rays and star signs or do you just need to be loving and forgiving? Perhaps we don’t need to choose, after all.

The Little Book of the Dharma

18 Aug 2010

This is a new book this year. It takes you through the underlying ideas of Buddhism – it is subtitled A Guide to Enlightenment. If you want to know the basics without wading through volumes of theory, this is for you. Perhaps you are thinking of starting a course in Buddhism. This will let you know what you are in for. It is arranged in alphabetical order from Avalokiteshvara to Yoga in a readily accessible format.There will be a website devoted to this book where you can buy the text. If you would like to read the manuscript of the book – an information-packed 4,600 words – please send me £5.

Harvest (Firewater Press through Lifecraft)

14 Jun 2009

Harvest was sown in stony ground. It was started in Fulbourn Psychiatric Hospital, where I lived for nine months. I wrote verses and longer pieces where the words were chosen to evoke the experiences. The experiences were not poetic. I wanted to make poetry out of ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘depression’. I wanted to express inarticulateable expressions. To huff the ineffable. The poems are loosely based around the year in nature. They tend to use the idiom of Christian verse, but by bending it and stretching it I aimed to show that such experiences are not cliches, but remarkable. This was the rough end of ‘survivors’ poetry. How do you survive best? Do you rejoice in the positive, expose the negative or just wail?

Extract…

Between Sharon and Hamas

The Independent, May 21
‘We have lost our livlihood
We have lost our orange-gold
Each tree is like my baby’

Oranges scattered among uprooted trees
A citrus grove razed to destroy cover
A squat Palestinian woman – Universal babushka – Crouches on the ground
Collects one by one the spilt fruit
-A universal female
Retrieves some of her wealth
Knowing that life goes on

Crossing the Sahara By Scooter

14 Jun 2009

This is a diverse collection of 352 poems. Variety is the hallmark of the work. The subject matter is the most uniform aspect. These poems are about the struggle for respect, the establishing of a place for a woman who happens to have schizophrenia. The stage is set with natural scenery: the hills and rivers of Cambridgeshire, the black but potent fens. A Welsh valley backdrop. The poet’s characteristic affinity with Nature is manifest in the weather and the seasons. My personal battle is fought out by the elements. Not an impersonal photograph but the countryside personified through emotion and spirit.. There is variety in spiritual orientation, an ‘eclectic but not too eclectic’ use of Buddhist, Pagan and Christian traditions bound into a totally original philosophy. Ballads, songs, hymns even and prayer, a recognisable borrowing from oral and sung forms, but also free verse, haiku, rhyme or not, the romantic, the modern. And humour. If you sample across the whole range you will build a complete picture of one woman’s slow wrestle for dignity and connection.

Extract…

The Thought-Bird

Alight on an idea
Hop from twig to twig
Flap the wings
The bird is free

I thought I could keep it in a cage
Hear how it sings!
Proud that I had a bird
That was the first stage

At least the bird uses its voice
It does not seem to pine
Things are sure Rejoice! Rejoice!
But the pet was scared

Certainty does not make him happy
He wants to jump and fly
Be ruled by the capricious wind
Not sit on a perch and sing

The Craft of Life

14 Jun 2009

Literally in a smoky back room off Mill Road, Cambridge, the Lifecraft poets meet. On a Wednesday afternoon Jenny, Glen, Cate, Mandy, Mark, Fergus, Maggie, Vicky…anyone who loves to write , who needs to affirm something of value in their chaos.. Gathered together by Tom, a real bearded Dubliner I could have met in Ruskin Bar at one in the morning, we pass round poems and share harrowing stories of times of degredation and sorrow in the slippery hands of the mental health services.. And the funny times. The kind looks, the gigs to look forward to. Some poets are angry. Some are ecstatic. Sharing is the way to cement the group. Especially sharing our work. ‘The Craft of Work’ is a compilation of thoughts volunteered. There are four of mine included.

Extract…

To Wake Up and Look

To wake up and look
Across the sea horizon
Over the sea and quietly sip
The spray of life from the unicorn’s ear

To sleep with the sun
Before the day comes is as easy as a friend walks away

To be apart is to be wandering with
Winds of eternal time, forever brushing strokes of idle jest
And small candour in sweeps of lies and covers of anguish leaping
To conclusions of toal existence
Jenny

The Kingdom Is Yours

14 Jun 2009

Like it or hate it, ‘The Kingdom Is Yours’ will speak to you. You may not be able to relate much to what it says, but speak it will. Here is raw experience recorded in eight years of frantic diaries. I had to make sense of it all. I would like to give you the chance to do the same. If you are curious about the forces that shape our world, the impetus behind the fall of the Berlin wall. the release of Mandela. the liberation of the Beirut hostages and if you want to know the future of Burma and the way forward for China, this is for you. Fact or fiction? I will leave it up to you to decide. And finally understand the Grail connection.

Extract…

And here is Bridget Kendall from Peking, with Bill Clinton. She smiled from half way around the world.

I resign Diolch yn fawr a ffarwel
I made them cry for the Welsh
I made them cry, for the Welsh the sky is crying here now, too ~

Uncle Glyn, Glyn Thomas, was a graduate of Aberystwyth University. He was the youngest ever member of the Royal Geographical Society. He crossed the Sahara in a battered old Wolsey and was the headmaster of his own school. He married the French teacher, Auntie Beryl.

I do not need lessons in education from my English peers. My superiors, yes.

Melanie Klein predicted that in sixty years neurosis would be eradicated. Bye bye, neurosis.

The Film

14 Jun 2009

This is the film script of ‘The Kingdom Is Yours’. Clear and direct, it teases out the main narrative of the diaries and presents it in technicolor. Magic co-exists with a harsh storyline of bullying at work. What exactly is justice?

Extract 1…

Mr. Lowery’s room the next day.

Linda: I had the best evening of my life and I feel more well than all the times when I’ve rested and done nothing. I met a journalist. I found a passage in the Bible this morning.

Matthew: Christ calleth Peter. I can’t find Peter. Peter’s denial. He goes to see where Christ’s body is lying. Peter came back for his jacket. He is the rock on which the church is built. Then there’s Dan and rivers.

Music: A child of Our Time: Deep river. I want to cross over into camp ground.

Linda continues: Negro spirituals. Somewhere safe. I can cleanse Peter’s spirit. I can remove his obstacles. At least I can read him in the paper. I can follow the connection…

Extract 2…

Mr. Marshall’s office.

Mr. M: I hear that you have mentioned your knickers in the Staff Lounge.

Linda looks aghast.

Mr. M: And if I mentioned my knickers what would you think?