Knightsmith, Pooky (2016). Using poetry to promote talking and healing. Jessica Kingsley Publishers: London and Philadelphia.

Despite the relative seriousness indicated by this book’s title, its cover hints at a sense of experimentation – even fun. This is all the more surprising, and some might say refreshing, once you read in Dr Knightsmith’s acknowledgements that this book was written at a time of “complete mental breakdown”, when she was in “the deepest depths of anorexia and suicidality”; for me, such an open disclosure in a published work by an author of esteem is hugely powerful in helping dispel some myths about mental ill health.

Sunday 12th February 2023 - 5pm to 6:15pm (UK time)

Facilitator: Barbara Bloomfield and Roger Livingston

Start your new year with a creative burst!

Come and find your juicy energy with short readings and poems and a bit of creative writing that will help to support and encourage you for the coming year.  Writers Barbara Bloomfield and Roger Livingston, plus the odd guest or two, will bring you inspiring words -  funny, romantic, warm and challenging   - and invite you to energise and focus your talents for 2023.

Today is National Poetry Day and a few members of the Lapidus team wanted to share with you poems that mean something to them.

Like those fizzy yellow treats, Tee Francis’ poems are often bittersweet - and sparkle with wit.

She explores the personal and the political: poems about cotton buds, left-over Christmas trees and insomnia jostle with a cleverly rhyming Ode to Jeremy Hunt and a satirical monologue in the voice of a Brexit-voting ex-pat who – surprise, surprise - prefers to live in Spain. There are tenderly erotic love lyrics (Hymn for Him, Communion, Silent Treatment) and poems which celebrate the beauty of the Dorset countryside where she lives (On Walking to Fleet Church). There are some very funny poems which were written for Spoken Word performance but, even on the page, made this reader laugh out loud (Slots, Forbidden Pleasures).

Calling all Poets!

Peace and Palindrome

A poetry writing workshop at

Canada Water library, London SE16

Saturday April 21^st 1.30-4.30pm

A small low cost workshop for both new and experienced writers of poetry, facilitated by Alison Clayburn, a poet and fiction writer with thirty years tutoring experience.

This workshop will focus on a topic: peace and then a particular form of poetry: palindrome

Anyone who visits Aldeburgh on the weekend of 3rd - 5th November will be delighted with an offering of poetry, music, film and art in the town by the sea.