This is happiness. It comes in two interchangeable types, happiness up and happiness down.

Slurshal abs winfi, mimbo weft
Yurl shafe umb shasso mish

These are just a few of the lines I’ve ended up with after taking part in Paul Matthews’ ‘Standing by Our Words’ workshop at the Beaney yesterday.

I can honestly say I have never taken part in a workshop like it before, it was absolutely fantastic! I wanted to share a flavour of it with you.

We threw bean bags, played clapping games, and created surreal poems with random spoken words. We wrote poems in made up languages and chanted them like spells, brought together our magical inner and outer worlds, and learned about Naming things, Mercury, and the healing power of language, and much more.

Paul encouraged us to embrace ‘silly’ as a way into ‘soul’, and this created the most joyful workshop I have ever experienced. It was more than a writing workshop, he was teaching us new ways to think and we had so much fun doing so. I felt my brain stretch over the course of the day as it took on new concepts and perspectives – and brain stretching and learning is something I always love :)



Free Taster Sessions

As part of Beach Creative's Showcase Exhibition, I'll be doing a couple of FREE taster workshops!

Saturday 28 January

• 10am - 11am Creative Writing taster session 
• 11.30am - 12.30pm Writing for Well-being taster session

Come along and try your hand at some creative writing, and/or experience a writing for well-being workshop.
No writing experience necessary for either session.

Beach Creative
Beach House
Beach Street
Herne Bay
CT6 5PT

Spaces are limited so please email nicky@pebblepoetry.co.uk to book

Journal Musings

I'm actually cheating a little here, this is old writing - my upcoming journal writing course reminded me of a post I made on another blog a few years ago, and it seemed appropriate to share. My feelings about journals are pretty much the same now as then. So here it is:

I need a new journal – possibly easy to remedy, pop to the shops, grab a notebook of some description. But it’s not that simple.

I go through phases of journalling. I might write pages every day for a few months and then nothing for ages. Most of the time it's angsty outpourings that I wouldn’t want anyone else to read. Sometimes what I say doesn’t matter, the words are just shapes on paper, it’s the physical act of scribbling to the page that’s necessary, so I need something in which I can enjoy the physical act of writing.

Which is probably why the journal itself is important to me: what it looks like how it feels, the colour/texture of the paper. Ideally it has to look gorgeous – I’ve written in suede-bound books that are just wonderfully tactile to handle, ones with beaded covers, and lookswise, you can’t beat some of the paperblanks journals.


But also the paper inside is important: ideally unlined, lines seem to constrict emotional outpourings, if it’s unlined I can scribble as huge and angry as I like. And the texture of the paper has to be supersmooth as I like writing in turquoise ink. (On a side note, Oxford A4 notebooks have fantastically smooth paper). (On another side note, paperblanks don’t score so highly here, as their paper is slightly textured).

If the paper is rough, I can swap to writing with fibre-tips, but it’s not the same. I just love the way the nib of my parker pen seems to float ink over the page.

And size is important too – yes it really is! ;) When I’m writing I prefer A4, but for journalling, A5 is more comfortable. An A4 pages is big and blank, it’s hard to tell a secret to, A5 is cosy and inviting. Even the briefest of thoughts fills a chunk of space.

So I’m keeping my eye out for the perfect journal, I just hope I find one before I fill up these last few pages.

Seven swans a-swimming

Today is the 7th day of Christmas, and I find myself humming seven swans a swimming. So here's a poem about swans by Owen Sheers.

Advent Calendar Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas Eve! For the final day of the advent calendar I'm sharing the classic 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' and wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year.

Advent Calendar 23

For day 23 we have a 'Letter to Santa Claus'

Advent Calendar day 22

It's only 3 days to go and Victoria Field's poem 'The Things They Said' is full of Christmas twinkle.

The Things They Said
The first star said
I’m a spark adrift
in the sea of night

The second
I burn with an icy light

The third star said
I’m an arrow pointing the way –
follow me, follow me into the day

The gold declaimed
I’m worth less
than the flowers in the field

The frankincense whispered
wash me away with the hair of a girl
when I’m gone I’m revealed

The myrrh asked
I’m beloved and bitter – it’s a birth
but has somebody died?

Said the gifts
you must give us
in our going, we’ll arrive

The old king cried
I need armies, chief priests and power
my hunger is hate and my anger is fear

The new king replied
nothing –
he’s asleep in the manger that’s also a bier

The love said
I’ll hurt you, one day I’ll go
that moment’s forever with each rising sun

Say the people, you’re crazy
Say the wise men, we know -
but that night for a moment
stars and earth become one.


Broadcast on Radio 4, Sunday Worship from Truro Cathedral, January 2007 and previously published in Poetry Cornwall