Latest Podcasts / Music news

Plenty of news forthcoming over poetry as I’ve had confirmation coming through in quite a few publications / opportunities but in the meantime, here is the latest on Podcasts etc.

Spoken Label:

Lots of releases to follow as Spoken Label has and is proving very popluar at the moment but here are the last few releases:

Randy Horton

https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/randy-horton-spoken-label-april-2018

George Melling (Live Word Central, April 2018)

https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/george-melling-word-central-april-2018

Hilary Robinson

https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/hilary-robinson-spoken-label-april-2018

Reading in Bed:

The newish Podcast series by me and my little lady Amanda is going great and we are both reading for Programme 5 at the moment.

Programme 4 is here - https://readinginbed.bandcamp.com/album/reading-in-bed-4-april-2018

OR

https://www.mixcloud.com/amanda-steel/reading-in-bed-4/

and features us reviewing the following books:

Gillian McAllister - Anything you do say 
Jay Asher - Thirteen reasons why 
Alice VL - The Weeping Prince 
Keith Houghton - Crash 
Jacqueline Woods - I have learnt

Ocean in a Bottle:

After a break, Ocean in a Bottle recently released the almost silent single ‘Awakening I’.

Part II and an additional single Reading in the reference library will follow over summer

https://oceaninabottle.bandcamp.com/album/awakening-i

Premature Birth poem published on Bonnie's Crew

The excellent Bonnie's Crew website has just published one of my poems 'Premature Birth'.

Without going into personal details too much over Kate (who set up this project)'s personal background but Bonnie’s Crew was created after problems through the birth of Kate’s youngest child and the hard work Leeds Congenital Hearts put it for her. Paraphrasing the site, the unit is funded by the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund for the invaluable work they do, and it doesn’t bear thinking about that the government nearly closed this unit down. Whether someone’s heart defect is big or small, whether the person is big or small, they do everything they can to save a life.

This experience Kate advises made her want to give back to the unit, to the nurses, the doctors and everyone who keeps the place going which resulted in the creation of this site (and an accompanying anthology will follow, with 100% of the proceeds going to the CHSF Keeping the Beat campaign) to showcase poems of hope, hearts, hospitals, children, survival, love, faith – however those things manifest in the work people send – and hopefully raise some money for the CHSF / Leeds Congenital Hearts.

Speaking from my side, Premature Birth covers the difficult birth my nephew went through years back, and is now a lovely young man of just turned 10 and looks like me I’ve heard more than a few people say like me at that age several times now and made me reflect on my own birth back in 1972 and the problems my mother also had with me. Without the care I received and Jack also received, it is open to debate whether either of us would have survived.

I struggle with money myself at the best of times but the poem needed to be wrote for this excellent cause and I hope you like it and also choose to donate something to their Just Giving Page which can be found here

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bonnieandcrew