This Heart Is A Poem

‘These poems arrive like gentle revelations, where the sacred shows up in the washing-up and a robin delivers divine wisdom.’

This Heart is the title of a new collection of poems published by Wild Goose Books.

These are poems that arrived when something inside began knocking on the door of something outside and found the door creaking open. The trees in the breeze bowing to each other. A cyclist pedaling through the air. A robin looking back at me, asking what my problem is.

Poems in art galleries or on football pitches, at the immigration hearing or on the demo. Poems when your back’s gone again or you wonder if you really just said that out loud. Poems on birth days or death days or the out of the ordinary in between days.

This Heart found its shape in the early mornings, during my daily bungled attempt to slow life down enough to read it. To snap a photo of the passing days, an experiment in caffeine and contemplation which, now and again, discovers it’s become a prayer.

‘Some mornings I take my prayers for a walk
It’s good for them to stretch their legs
It helps to clear the head…’

Poetry and prayer are often falling into each others arms. Inviting silence to cough up her truth. To persuade meaning to give an inch. To stop being so mysterious.

On their day either may become the language which explains each of us to all of us, and all of us to all of this. Mary Oliver understood.

‘Poetry is prayer, it is passion and music, it is beauty, comfort, it is agitation, declaration, it is thanksgiving.’

Read more about these poems from the universe inside.

Special thanks to Jane, Sandra and Neil at Wild Goose Publishing, to Malcolm Doney for the painting on the cover and Jeff Fisher for the cover design.