Poetry Readings Pippa Roberts, Cheltenham

MY POETRY READINGS Pippa Roberts, Cheltenham


Hi everyone,

My last post was so sad I thought I'd better follow it up with something more upbeat, now I'm feeling slightly better. I still wake up crying in the mornings, but I do firmly believe that, if your love is not wanted in one place you should give it in another.

I have had a wonderful idea for another children's play - but more of that another day. Suffice it to say that it concerns some wicked witches and a cat called Humphrey. :)

I thought I'd tell you about the poetry readings I do in residential homes, and for senior groups, today. These give so much pleasure to me, and (I'm told) to the people I read to. Sometimes I'm asked to read my own poems, but I usually do a selection from a variety of poets, with poems from different periods, linked by a common theme.

Today I read poems that were about winter and Christmas. We went from Thomas Hardy to Robert Frost, to Louis MacNeice, to Ted Hughes, to Maya Angelou, and, (of course!), to my dear Effie M R. This is one of her poems about Christmas:


Do you realise Christmas is near?
I'm afraid there'll be but little of cheer;
It just seems a farce when hearts are sore
And war's destruction lies right at our door;
Still I suppose we must see it through
And say yet again, "A merry Christmas to you."

I guess you are hoping that I will make
A nice rich spicy and iced Christmas cake,
Well, there will be a cake of some sort, it's true
Of currants and raisins, I have just a few;
But icing! - dear me, you may look aghast, -
But icing sugar's a thing of the past!

A Christmas pudding, with brandy sauce! -
Really good people, - I'd love to, of course, -
But that's disappeared, along with the whisky,
There's nothing this year to make you feel frisky;
But we'll be thankful for what we can get,
Even though the fare's plain, we haven't starved yet.


Thank goodness we don't have to worry about a lack of brandy sauce or whisky. :D

I came out and met a man who offered to give me my own baby. Hadeha. I suspect he'd have enjoyed the making more than the childcare.

I just want to play with my sweet Isaac again. All blessings on his dear dear head.

Pippa :)x