Monthly Archives: August 2016

My latest collection of poetry, “Refractions” is available to purchase in the Amazon Kindle store

Refractions

I am pleased to announce that my latest collection of poetry, “Refractions” is available to purchase in the Kindle store. To read a free sample of “Refractions”, or to buy the book, please visit Amazon HERE (for the UK) and HERE (for the US).

The book description for “Refractions reads as follows:
“The poet may redact
The light that through his poem does refract.
But the reader will therein construe
That she believes to be true”.

Light refracts causing confusion as to where it is going in the same
way that poems do. What the reader thinks the poet means and
what he actually does are often 2 rather different things but readers
will, none the less draw their own conclusions (eroneous or
otherwise).

(For my previous collection of poetry, “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” please visit http://moyhill.com/lost/).

“Autumnal” by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Yesterday evening, I sat in my living room leafing through “The New Oxford Book of English Verse”. Pausing at Keats, I read several of his poems, the last one among them being “Autumn”. “Autumn” is one of those poems which refreshes the jaded soul and causes the reader to gasp in wonder at the sheer beauty of the poet’s creation.
Having read Keats, I was minded to reproduce “Autumn” on this site. However “Autumn” is well known and rather than quote a much loved and well known poem, I have chosen instead to share Ernest Christopher Dowson’s poem, “Autumnal”:

image

“PALE amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees,
That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer’s loss
Seems little, dear! on days like these!

Let misty autumn be our part!
The twilight of the year is sweet:
Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
Eludes a little time’s deceit.

Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream.

Beyond the pearled horizons lie
Winter and night: awaiting these
We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
Beneath the drear November trees”.

Grumpy Interview

An amusing interview with Lucy Brazier, the creator of “Secret Diary of Portergirl”.
Kevin

Lucy Brazier's avatarLucy Brazier

I wasn’t my usual chipper self when giving this interview, and when I received the notes back I realised that I sound like a proper arsey little madam!

00 lucy 2 Looking pretty arsey here.

1. I was surprised when you told me that Porters in a College don’t actually carry any bags for anyone. They simply guard the keys.

Portering is far more than just guarding keys, I assure you! The Porters ensure the smooth running of the day-to-day business of College life, handling everything from the post to broken hearts. They are the backbone of academia – providing security, advice and a friendly ear at any time of the day or night. Guarding keys, indeed. Pah! Philistine. 

2. PorterGirl is a work of fiction but based heavily on your life as the first female Deputy Head Porter at a Cambridge college. What was the hardest thing about writing this book?

There…

View original post 1,053 more words

Nostalgia

In a recent article in The Daily Mail, entitled “Forget the Age of Plenty, We Were Happier in the 1700’s” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3756368/Forget-age-plenty-happier-1700s-Briton-s-content-life-era-slums-gin-mothers-workhouses-today.html), it is reported that research shows the 18th century was the period in which people were happiest, despite the grinding poverty in which much of the population lived.
The above article reminded me of a comment made by a reviewer of my collection of poetry “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” that “ There is a feeling of nostalgia in some poems, e.g. “Modernity”, (https://emmalee1.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/lost-in-the-labyrinth-of-my-mind-k-morris/). The poem is reproduced below in order that my readers may judge for themselves:

“Give me something real

Not this plastic I feel.

Give me books in cloth boards

That I may not be bored.

Give me a chime

To measure time.

Give me solid wood

To caress and love.

Give me objects that last

A link to the past.

The world moves fast

Vast

Nothingness beccons.

Enumerable seconds

engaged

In rage

Against the gleam

Of the machine

That haunts my dream”.

(For “Modernity” and the other poems in “Lost in The Labyrinth of My Mind” please visit http://moyhill.com/lost/.

Turn the Pillow Over

Turn the pillow over
And wish upon a four leaf clover.
Cover the scent,
The pent
Up desire and loss,
Then count the cost
My friend
For all things come to an end.

The four-leaf clover is considered to be lucky and is rarely found in nature, unlike it’s relation, the thrhee-leaf clover, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-leaf_clover).

A review of my book, “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind”

Many thanks to Annette for the following review of my collection of poetry “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind”:

“I am so happy to have a copy of this book. Author. Kevin Morris, has such capture of the world around him and uses his command of words to craft poetry
that stimulates the senses. One of the poems in this volume, spoke to me specifically. Autumn Breeze made me smile, as I am an autumn born, baby and that
time of year always makes me smile. Congratulations, K. Morris, on a most delightful, though provoking book that I shall read again and again”.

For the original review please visit this link, http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1737069156.

Kevin