Category Archives: musings

Ebook or paper, you pays your money and you makes your choice

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Yesterday (23 August), I announced that my “Selected Poems” is available in the Amazon Kindle store, https://kmorrispoet.com/2019/08/23/my-selected-poems-is-now-available-for-purchase-in-the-kindle-store/

My office is a relaxed place and (within reason) no one objects to the odd non-work-related email. Consequently, I emailed yesterday informing my colleagues that my “Selected Poems” was available in Kindle, and provided a link enabling anyone interested to take a look or purchase my book.

In response to my email, one of my colleagues got in touch asking whether “The Selected Poems of K Morris” is available in paperback. I am pleased to announce that my book is now available in paperback and can be found here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1688049800/ (for the US and elsewhere), and here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1688049800/ (for the UK).

I am keen for my readers to have a choice as regards how they access my books. As Simon Jenkins points out in “The Guardian” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/13/books-ebook-publishers-paper, many people appreciate the physicality of a paper book and reports of the demise of the traditional (hard copy) tome have been greatly exaggerated.

As someone who is visually impaired and unable to read print, I am a fan of ebooks insofar as they enable those with visual impairments to access literature via Apple’s Voiceover screen reader and the Kindle’s text to speech facility. I also use my Amazon Echo to listen to Kindle books and audio titles from audible.co.uk. Having said that, I do love sitting with a braille book upon my knee as its an experience not mediated via technology (something very precious in today’s tech obsessed society).

Consequently its not a case of paper bad, ebook good, or the other way around! Its a matter of people finding what works best for them. I like the idea of readers taking down my books from their bookshelves (as I love going through my own bookcases), however, if readers wish to read my (or other authors books) on their iPhones or other similar devices, then that is fine as, in the final analysis its the enjoyment of literature that matters, not how it is consumed.

A Young Lady Whose Name Is Ling

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A young lady whose name is Ling
Tied me up in the budding spring,
And when the summer came
She did exactly the same.
I wonder what the autumn will bring?

My “Selected Poems” is now available for purchase in the Kindle store

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I am delighted to announce that my Selected Poems is now available for purchase in the Amazon Kindle store.

If you are a UK customer please click here, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07WW8WXPP/. Or for the US or elsewhere, please follow this link, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WW8WXPP/.

A paperback edition will be available in the next couple of weeks, and an announcement will appear here once the print book is available for purchase.

Book Description:

This book encompasses poems composed between 2013-19. The poems included here have been selected from Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind, My Old Clock I Wind and Other Poems, The Writer’s Pen and Other Poems, Dalliance; a Collection of Poetry and Prose, Refractions, and The Girl who Wasn’t There.

In addition, a number of previously unpublished poems are included in this book.

The poems range from those dealing with nature to others, which touch on the passage of time and mortality.

(For links to my previously published books, please visit my website’s “About” page, https://kmorrispoet.com/about/).

I Know A Young Lady Named Hortense

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I know a young lady named Hortense
Whose poems just do not make sense!
She writes them in latin
Whilst dressed in pink satin,
And they’re all in the present tense!

I know a young lady named Hortense
Whose poems just do not make sense!
She writes them in latin
Whilst dressed in pink satin,
And I wish she’d mend my fence!

Some Find It Easy To Write About Death

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Some find it easy to write about death
And readers raise
A glass in praise
Of their art.
Larkin feared the loss of breath
And, in Aubade
Played out his fears.
Whilst others hide inside
Their art
The fear that lurks within their heart.

Parasite

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You called him, who does lack
The capacity to answer back
A “parasite”.
Whilst its undoubtedly true
That you have a right
To your point of view,
I do wonder what use are you
To society But, out of propriety
Of course I didn’t say that . . .

Dead Stop

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Perhaps some things should not be said
In poetry,
Or maybe
They can not be said
Meaningfully by me.

As does nearly always happen
My train stopped, dead
At Clapham
(Though not for its proper, brief
Stay). We did not pull away.
What can be said
About grief
(Not experienced by me)?
Perhaps some things should not be said
In poetry.

When, that evening I came back
The track at Clapham
Was clear.
We made good time.
Though a drear
Thought did cross my mind,
But I find
That some things can not easily be said
In rhyme
By me, as I sit here, warm
Thinking of the ajacent platform
And how our train stopped, dead,
But, perhaps some things should not be said
In poetry,
Or at least by me.

I Wont Distract You!

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Yesterday, I was traveling up on the escalators at London Victoria underground station with my guide dog Trigger, when the following incident took place:

Man a couple of steps above me, speaking directly to Trigger,
“I know you are a working guide dog so I wont disturb you”.
Me, “thank you”.
Man, (looking directly at Trigger, “I wont distract you”, at which Trigger wags his tail and becomes rather distracted!

The above incident is, on one level comical. The comedy arising from the man in question doing precisely what he said he wouldn’t do, namely distract my working guide dog! However the actions of this gentleman where potentially dangerous and (not to put too fine a point on it, stupid)!

Guide dogs are trained to assist visually impaired people to navigate safely around streets, roads etc. They do wonderful work. However they are, when all is said and done dogs, who love attention and who can, when given it, become distracted.

I am very happy (when Trigger is not working) for him to receive strokes and cuddles (provided the person giving the attention has asked first). I rarely refuse a request to pet Trigger. However it is my absolute right to give such a refusal and the stupidity (albeit unintentional) of the gentleman in question had the potential to put my safety (and that of others) in danger. For example had Trigger pulled forward to reach the gentleman I might have fallen putting myself and those behind me, on the escalator at risk.

Fortunately the overwhelming majority of people behave responsibly around guide dogs. I only wish that everyone did so.

Kevin