A little encouragement

I haven’t written many poems recently; covid seems to have knocked the poetic stuffing out of me and so there hasn’t been as much writing as there usually is. I have been concentrating on trying to get my energy back so that I cold run in the Bristol 10kms event with my younger son. The event was on Sunday and I completed the course in 1 hour and 11 minutes. Three weeks ago I wasn’t sure I would be able to do this. All along the route there were people calling out encouragement; some would read your name on your race page and call out to you. It was uplifting and really made a difference.

What’s that got to do with poetry? Well, if someone writes a poem and you read it online or hear it on line or at an in-person live event, a little shout out goes a long way to encourage them. Give a shout out to those fantastic people who organise events for the sharing of poetry. Last week I had the privilege of being the MC at an Evesham Festival of Words online event. https://eveshamfestivalofwords.org/ There were fantastic guest poets: Annick Yerem, Sarah Connor, and Sue Finch and then all the wonderful open mic poets too. It was fun, the poetry was great and it uplifted everyone.