Category Archives: poetry

Abingdon Poetry Groups

You may remember I published a book called ‘Ten Poems about Abingdon’ last year. There are copies in Abingdon Library, and still, a few are left for sale at The Book Store and Abingdon Museum. The books sell at £5, and the profits, about £4.25 a copy, go to The Abingdon Bridge young people’s charity. (The book was dedicated to Pauline Sykes, who leads the Abingdon Share a Poem group.)

There are other poetry groups in Abingdon and some excellent poets. I know of the U3A poetry group and the Quaker poetry group.

There are also the Ock Poets who meet in Abingdon Library and are eleven months old. They began in March 2022. They are a group who write poetry, have a monthly talk and a themed exercise and share their poems. The next one is tomorrow, but it is best to email the address on the poster first.

Here is an example of a poem by an Abingdon Poet called The Sea by Justin Gosling. Justin passed away last November, and I hope his family won’t mind me sharing this reading. (All Rights Reserved.) He read it in the Abingdon Share a Poem group. It can be found in his poetry book The Jackdaw in the Jacaranda, which can probably be ordered from local bookshops and is definitely available online.

Ten Poems about Abingdon – officially released

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Life-time readers of the Abingdon Blog may remember how I started collecting poems about Abingdon. There was also a request through the Abingdon Herald in January 2022 for poems.

The resulting book is now available in The Bookstore, Mostly Books, Abingdon Museum, and from TAB (The Abingdon Bridge). The Bookstore is giving all proceeds to charity but to help that can only take cash. For anybody who cannot get to any of these shops, email or drop a note to my truenym’s email (see the picture above).

The book is dedicated to Pauline Sykes, who has been running the Abingdon Share-a-poem for a long time. The group meets monthly to share poems, some self-written and others by established authors. Previous books from the group include Wellspring Words in 2007 and WAR and PEACE in 2003.

Andrew Jamison helped with selecting ten from over forty poems submitted to me. Andrew also wrote the foreword. Andrew is a teacher at Abingdon School. His poetry has been published widely in UK and Irish literary journals, and anthologies. His books of poetry include: ‘Stay’ and ‘Happy Hour’ published by The Gallery Press.

Money will go to The Abingdon Bridge, a well-being charity that supports young people aged 13-25. This does suggest the idea for a follow-up book, ‘Ten poems about young Abingdon’.

Two Oswald Couldrey Triolets about Abingdon

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Oswald Couldrey was an Abingdon artist and writer. Jackie lent me a book of his poems called Triolets and Epigrams , published in 1948. A triolet is a verse form with eight short lines. The first line is repeated three times (hence the name), and the second line is repeated twice.

Here are two which mention Abingdon or an Abingdon place. I have put back the date for selection of the Abingdon poems collection to the end of January 2022 in the hope of finding more. The picture shows five trees, in Rye Farm, felled in the last fortnight, after storm damage.

Rye Farm Elms
(felled 1940)

The summer we shall find again,
But not the elms of Andersea,
That could so proudly entertain
The summer. We shall find again
Elsewhere the turtle’s crooned refrain.
Bowers, that drench with melody
The summer, we shall find again –
But not the elms of Andersea.

The Burden of Abingdon

In fifteen years, or less,
You’ll find us in the maw
Of Oxford. What a mess
In fifteen years or less !
Already our skirts caress
That foul and ravening jaw;
In fifteen years or less,
You’ll find us in the maw !

The Complete Philosophy Collection at Abingdon Library (181 – 199)

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The path: a new way to think about everything
From Confucius to Xunzi
six of the great – but largely unknown –
Chinese philosophers
show us the way to live well.

The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet
The wisdom of the Tao
winds its way
through these children’s books
in a whimsical way.

The hemlock cup : Socrates, Athens and the search for the good life
This biography puts the physical
back into the metaphysical.
We think the way we think
because he thought the way he thought.

Lessons in Stoicism by John Sellars
The ideas of the great Stoic Philosophers –
Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius –
“Don’t explain your philosophy.
Embody it.”

A practical guide to philosophy for everyday life
Philosophy can make you aware
of what you think and why,
and help you take charge
of what you think and why.

A Short History of Modern Philosophy
Descartes by way of Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes,
Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer,
Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Mill, Frege, Husserl,
Heidegger, Wittgenstein to post-modernist philosophy.

(written for Abingdon Share a Poem October 2021 where the topic was Philosophy)