Over the past couple of months I’ve been putting together a new collection of poems. It’s called snapshots from the fall of home and features poems that have been placed in competitions, found their way into anthologies, and circulated online, as well as previously unpublished pieces.
Snapshots carries on where ‘thirty-one small acts…’ left off. It casts an eye over the injustices and inequalities of the world – and christ, but there’s plenty of those – and quietly suggests that genocide, far-right politics, and a hunt for culture-war scapegoats might not be the best way forward. Those shouldn’t be contentious points, but this is 2023, and pumping yourself up on hate and fury while the planet burns is proving to be the way too many folk get their jollies.
There’s hope in this collection, too. Some days I wake up and I’m not entirely sure just how fragile that might be, but – obstinately and bloody-mindedly – the hope remains. Each day there are millions of small acts of kindness, and moments of connection. People caring for each other. Keep your eyes open for those, folks. Treasure them as snapshots of a path to a better world.
