It’s been a difficult year. For everyone. Just before the pandemic hit I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Shocked wasn’t the word. But it was the best kind apparently and hadn’t spread beyond a few lymph nodes. Just to be sure, we threw everything at it – chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy and medication – and now I can honestly say I’m a different person. The experience has changed me. For the better I think.

And throughout this time, a world of action became a world of words. I turned to poetry, as many of us did, found comfort in writing about what I was going through to make sense of it all. When I told my boss the news, amongst other things she said ‘just think of it as fodder for your next collection!’ So true and one I’m currently working on (a poem from it has recently been published in StylusLit).

And speaking of collections, this debut is a gem – Sorry about the mess by Heather Trickey – published by HappenStance. Heather received a cancer diagnosis around the same time I did and explores this in these poems along with family, loss and love. More than 200 people from across the world attended Heather’s Zoom launch and London Grip released a stunning review of the book.

I hope to post more regularly, about all things poetry, just thought I’d break the silence 🙂