Chinese London Exhibitions 2023

 

Open Mic session - 请听诗人

It's getting there

Lone Pine

 

孤树

鸟休息雪枝

来春近心里

下雨掉落慢

近你还太远

Lone Pine

Birds rest on snowy branches

Spring is coming to my heart

Falling slowly as it rains

Close to you is still too far

The Hollow Tree

There is a tree in my memory

Hollowed out of mollusced softness

Black and burnt she felt like a cloak

Where one could hide from others eyes

Seek shelter where no one spoke

CHINA VIEW

Your poetry reminds me of something, it touches my heart deeply 每个人心中都有下一样见解.

My father told me when he was young everything that looks lovely ; the fish, air  grassland and the people. Maybe we are just cherish the memory of our childhood and the old time. I miss the past days and my grandfather who are still there. AZURA ZHANG.

It’s my pleasure to read your book! Although I read only 16 pages provided by the website (sorry, I didn’t buy it yet), I have been moved by your words and sentences that stimulated my deep feeling of childhood and love.

In fact, a deep nostalgia pervaded in my heart when I first read a couple of words in your book. It was like Yesterday once more...What I apprehend from your words is that childhood, as a vital and sweet part in our life, definitely influences our life and plays an important role in our future.

I think childhood is as snug as the fire in a cold winter  which stays with me and calm me. Your words, which are comely and lovely, remind me of my childhood. I am a teenagers who just say goodbye to my childhood.

Perhaps, nowadays, childhood is not as pure and lovely as you experienced in your era that too many extra elements like MP3, IPhone, video games have already made childhood awfully complex, which is lack of true love and sweetness.

Through your photos, I found myself in a kind of quinteness and intimate of nature and memory.  I love them deeply that I found what childhood should be and what childhood definitely means to me.

Thank you, dear Mr Mowen, your book calm me down in a prosperous and rushing society that none can sit down and read a book peacefully. I love the style of your writing and I hope someday I can travel to your hometown!

By the way, my name is Scar instead of the name “ Ricky “ thank you for correcting articles and i think you are a fantastic writer as well as an outgoing teacher and friend.

Hi Mowen

I love these verses!

‘ and we built castles that Summer eve

Tight to the tin-high heaven sky

 Castles for cattle whose Winter weary days

Were bunged up in dunged-up silent byres

...

And we were boys

In the Spring of our lives ‘

Reading poems (especially with groups of people- that’s fantastic and dreamlike) is my passion, however, rarely happens here J

 I hope I can take my poems with me, wander throughout the whole world and know many poets like you! J

Beautiful poems and family album J

Press Release

 

‘A CATHARTIC experience’ are the words used by a Castledawson poet to describe his first published work ‘O Derry Boy.’

The nostalgic piece by Mervyn Cooke revisits a childhood spent in the great outdoors, in hayfields and farmyards, in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cooke imparts that the collection of poems, described by him as “a very intimate portrayal of life,” was penned after the loss of both his parents in successive years.

Each poem is illustrated beautifully with black-and-white photographs that recall summers past, yet cause one to stop for a moment and reflect – like the poetry itself.

Reviews of this very personal collection appear to have one thing in common, with each highlighting that Cooke’s book will not fail to stir the emotions. One reads: “This book will make you cry and laugh and love at what you have and lost,” and another states: “This is a most moving and delicate account of childhood...told simply and purely through photos and poems... Wonderful.”

Now resident in England, Cooke gives poetry readings of his work and that of the Late Bard, Seamus Heaney, whom he describes as “a big source of inspiration, although the realisation was in retrospect.”

WORDS are a powerful tool – just ask Mervyn Cooke, whose evocative book written following his father’s death has reduced grown men to tears.

The Northern Ireland-born salesman was left devastated and heartbroken following the passing of his dad Herbert, 92, in 2007.

The High Wycombe father of three read pieces by Kipling from his son’s GCSE books to his poetry-loving dad as he lay dying in his hospital bed.

A year later, Mr Cooke went on a charity walk along the Great Wall of China which awoke memories of his childhood and the Derry farm he spent his summers.

He committed his thoughts on to paper as part of the grieving process and, after reciting the pieces at live readings, he was stunned to find his words hit the hearts of others who had lost.

He said: “I never sat down to write poems, it was just a way of coping and it came naturally – the words just spilled on to the page.

“If someone asked me to write a poem about the last summer’s day in July, I couldn’t do it. And when I went to the live readings and I was introduced as a poet from High Wycombe, I sat there thinking ‘are they referring to me?’ “But people were very moved by the words. It brings up a lot of things that people put to the side and bottle up.

 “Words are so powerful, you can move people. Everyone can relate to it as everyone has lost someone close to them.”

The 58-year-old has now self-published his collection of ten poems and family photos into the book O Derry Boy – which has drawn high praise from readers.

The unwitting poet now plans to head back out to China, where the process began, to recite his work in schools and clubs, and hopes his work will continue to touch peoples’ hearts.

He said: “There’s a famous saying ‘uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’ and that refers to me and my writing – but it has given me a new lease of life.

“I want to make sure people benefit from what my father left and to move people with words.”

To view and download the book, visit www.GOOGLE.COM and search for O Derry Boy. To listen to poems from the book and more information, visit http://poetryinpubs.blogspot.com.

 

Excerpt from the MID_ULSTER_MAIL

 The Milking Hour

Dawn sunlight flickered through the laced curtain of the downstairs living room, door opening out to the farmyard.   Martin peered at the small figurines on his breakfast bowl, a blue willow pattern, of wind swept willows and Chinese peasants – he thought, one day, he would like to go to this place – while a clang of creamery cans from the dairy and the spill of slithering byre chains broke his dreaming.

“Auntie, auntie, may I leave the table? It’s time to fetch the cows for milking.”

Aunt Martha came across from the warm stove to the breakfast table “You finished your cereal?” Martin’s nod and her approving wink set him free.