National Poetry Day 2026



It’s National Poetry Day again, which means it’s time for my annual look back at the poems I’ve written over the last year.

Looking back over them, I think this might have been one of my more prolific years of writing… and, (imho!), one of my better ones too.

There isn’t really a single theme running through them. There’s family, faith, death, memory, mythology, social media, school playgrounds, and quite a bit of the stuff of ordinary life. Some are playful; some are rather darker. A couple are fairly traditional in form, while others ended up doing something a bit more different.

And that’s one of the things I really enjoy (and dread!!!) about writing poetry. I rarely know quite where a poem is going when I start it.

So, in chronological order, here they are:

T E A R
A small experiment in form, written at the end of last year.

The Adventure
A poem about adventure, although perhaps not quite the sort of adventure you might initially expect.

A Moment to Myself
A little space to stop, breathe, and be somewhere other than wherever I happen to be.

Social Media Influenza
A slightly less contemplative look at the peculiar things that happen to our brains when we spend too much time online. (NSFW)

Inheritance
Written for our church poetry group on the theme of “family”. It turns out that inheritance is not necessarily about money, property or heirlooms.

Essence
One of the more ambitious things I’ve attempted. Built around the first five letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and written whilst on retreat during Holy Week.

Triduum / Haec Dies
Another Holy Week poem (well, two, or maybe more really?), this time following the movement of the Triduum through death, waiting and resurrection.

Last Night (Ariadne’s Thread)
A poem about love, memory and mortality, with a little help from Ariadne and Ovid.

Fons Vitae
My most recent poem, inspired by ancient  legends about the fountain of youth/life, and the rather less grand reality of children in a school playground.


I’m not sure what next year’s list will look like yet! Perhaps there will be another nine poems… or maybe only two. Perhaps I’ll discover that all my work emails have been accidentally written in iambic pentameter.

For now, though, I’m quite happy with this year’s collection.

Happy National Poetry Day!


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