Tag Archives: newauthoronline

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

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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

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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”:

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“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”.

Nostalgia

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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

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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”

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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

Poetry and the Weather

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On my way home from work yesterday evening, I passed a familiar block of flats. The evening was a pleasant one, with a warm summer sun warming me as I strolled past the familiar apartments. A ball was being kicked, it’s sound mingling with that of the birds which twittered overhead.
I could hardly believe that this self-same location had, in November 2015 prompted me to pen the below lines:

“My thoughts lost on the damp air
Going who knows where.
The sodden grass
I pass
Where children play
but not today.
No ball
or bird call.
Only the rain’s incessant fall”.

One might be tempted to construe that the difference in weather is the sole determinant of my mood. Had I written a poem yesterday evening it would, no doubt be marked by an absence of melancholy (in sharp contrast to the above lines). Doubtless the miserable state of the weather on that November day in 2015 influenced my poem. However my mood on that particular day was (for reasons which I can not now remember) one of introspection. The bleak weather combined with my state of mind, to produce “Lost” (the title of the poem quoted above).
It is interesting to speculate on how my poem may have differed had children been playing football despite the foulness of the weather. Would it have been quite so introspective in nature? Would I have written it at all? The honest response to both questions is that I don’t know. Perhaps I wouldn’t have written “Lost” or maybe a poem imbued with rather more light than darkness would have found it’s way onto my blog and (later) into my collection of poetry “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind”.
External factors such as the weather, combine with the poet’s state of mind to produce poetry. Of course rain is by no means always a source of melancholy. It refreshes the earth bringing out the scent of the wonderful plants with which England is blessed. Had I been walking in a park at the time of that November shower, with the scent of autumn leaves and the last of the summer flowers filling my nostrils, I may well have written a different poem, one characterised by a less melancholic tinge. However Autumn has the power to kindle melancholy irrespective of the state of the weather. The dead leaves underfoot signify the dying of the year and one is acutely aware that winter’s iron grip will soon be felt throughout the land. So who knows how my poem would have differed (assuming I had, in fact penned one) in the event the circumstances of that November day in 2015 had been different.

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

Kevin

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My Latest Collection of poetry “Refractions” is Scheduled for Publication by end August 2016

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I am aiming to publish my latest collection of poetry, “Refractions” in the next 10-14 days. The collection derives it’s title from my poem “Refractions” which runs thus:

“The poet may redact
The light that through his poem does refract.
But the reader will therein construe
That she believes to be true”.

In the same way that light refracts, so to does poetry. What the reader sees in a poem is not (necessarily) what the poet intended him to perceive. Likewise different readers will interpret the same poem in diverse ways. The poet, for his part may obfuscate his meaning, while the whiley reader will dig deep and, perhaps get near the essence of the poem.
If anyone would like a free copy of “Refractions” in return for an honest review, please contact me via newauthoronline (at) gmail dot com (the address is rendered in this manner to defeat spammers).

Many thanks,

Kevin