The Last issue of The SHOp

The last issue. It's an honour to be in it. The editors, John and Hilary Wakeman, have been accepting pieces of mine for a while, when no one else seemed interested. This either means they had bad taste or were exceptionally perceptive. I prefer to believe the latter.

Poets often grumble about editors. But without editors there is no publication. So my thanks to John and Hilary and my best wishes for their retirement. It really was a marvellous publication.

And then The SHOp arrives ... it must be Christmas

In the last issue of The SHOp the editors pointed out a frightening statistic. Each year they receive about 6,000 poems for consideration. They print sixty an issue and there's only three issues a year. 180 chosen from 6,000.
And that includes writers like Mahon, Heaney, Longley, Les Murray and others of such ilk.

I have a poem in this issue.
It's the second time they've published one by me.

Once is a fluke, twice ...
Thursday 18/11/2010