Poetry: there are those who were put off it at school and those who are willing to give it some room. Alan Spillett, whose book of paintings Roadscapes II is nearly ready for the printer, falls into the second camp. Among his supporting features , Alan quotes lines from 'Roundabouts and Swings' by Patrick R Chalmers:
For "up an' down an' round," said 'e, "goes all appointed things,
An' losses on the roundabouts means profits on the swings!"
Another person in the appreciative group is Kate, daughter of tractor book author and magazine editor Stuart Gibbard. If you have been to the Spalding model tractor shows you will have seen her helping out on the Gibbard Tractors literature stand. One of Kate's ventures is Book a Poet, 'a comprehensive resource for organisations and individuals to book poets for every occasion'.
When I've been out in the fields with the video filming crew some lines from 'The Breaking of Nations' by Thomas Hardy have been known to come to mind:
Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.
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