Iamb - new poets

Just a reminder that iamb has new poets and poems appearing on a regular basis, as well as a great archive of writers. It's a beautifully designed website, too – easy on the eye and equally easy to navigate. I'll let you make your own minds up about your favourites, but there are a lot of really excellent poets there.

Iamb Poetry

Yesterday was National Poetry Day, a fact which I have to admit had escaped my notice until it was too late to do anything about it. Busy week at work, and all that.

Mark Antony Owen, who has created the fantastic Iamb poetry website, very kindly tweeted a link to my appearance on the site last year – you can hear me read three poems (including Grail Birds, inspired by the Ivory-billed Woodpecker referenced earlier this week).

But take the time to have a browse through the whole site. It's a superb resource, an inspiration, and a reminder that however good it is on the page, poetry needs to be heard, too (or at the very least, it takes on a whole new dimension when it is heard). 

There are new poets being added there on a regular basis, too, so it's a site to bookmark and keep returning to.

Iamb – poetry seen and heard

OK, I know I've said this before, but I've decided it's time to start using this blog again, and for the reason I initially set it up - to talk about poetry, mainly, although there will be diversions into other literature, history, natural history, birdwatching, and cricket.

So I'm going to start by pushing you in the direction of the splendid Iamb, a website that not only allows you to read the work of a huge variety of poets, but also to hear them read their work.

They've been released in four 'waves' so far, with further to follow, and you can read and hear some of my own poems (both old and new) here.

It's a really beautifully put-together site, for which Mark Antony Owen deserves huge credit – you can also enjoy his own poetry here.

I saw it pointed out this week that poetry publishers have generally been slow to get work out there in audiobooks, the reason being, I suspect, that it's a time-consuming and potentially expensive process, but I suspect it's the future of poetry publishing, or a big part of it. When it's done well, as here, it adds a whole new dimension to the poetry.