National Centre for Writing Commission Revealed!

The Norwich Cathedral Herb Garden

You can now read (and hear) my poem Cuckoo Converses with a Bishop on The National Centre for Writing's Website here.

Late last year, NCW commissioned me to write a new poem for Wandering Words, an interactive poetry map of Norwich. I chose to write about The Norwich Cathedral Herb Garden, which you can find at 5 The Close, Norwich NR1 4DH.

Here's a preview from the first part of the poem:

Cuckoo Converses with a Bishop

Peeping April discloses me tenderly,

perched in a fresh and leafy medlar tree,

crowded by precocious buds. You see,

I was rebuffed by a grey naiad of misty showers

who shook the crystals from her hair

and birled me about, until I sat somewhere

to puff the droplets from my feathers.

But where is this I find myself?

Webs cling to bits of brick, clutching trifles:

dead spiders, fragments of an old leaf,

silly rubbish meaning nothing.

You there, Bishop is it?

I must tell the news - it’s Spring!

Look, here is the fragrant winking woodruff,

there the loveage waxing lush, and

high in the yew a haughty blackbird: chuff chuff chuff.

I am a sprightly thing, a secret note

dropped from Nature’s catalogue.

You are a lucky man, Bishop.

Can you speak? Arise, I’ll instruct you...

Learn more about Wandering Words and download the latest map here. The other poem commissioned for Wandering Words this year is St benedict's Street by Martin Figura. Read it here.