There was a young lady from Kidderminster...

Today is National Poetry Day, as organised by The Poetry Society. So expect lots of people spouting rhyming couplets (though perhaps not limericks...) and the like on TV and radio during the course of the next 12 hours or so.
I've never written a poem myself, it's enough for me to string a coherent sentence together, let alone make it sensitive or funny or poignant or any of those things poetry encompasses. My best friend Julie writes some amazing poetry though – check out her poems online (she's also a photographer, incase you were wondering when you visit her website). Julie's poems really are sensitive, funny, poignant and all those things great poetry should be. Many of them have made me laugh out loud – and brought tears to my eyes.
But perhaps my favourite poem is one that I learned at school. It's very short (a plus!) and is by the American poet Ezra Pound, and it goes like this...
And the days are not long enough
And the nights are not long enough
And time slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass
Kinda describes modern life (at least it does mine), despite having being written, oh I don't know, at least 50 years ago? I really like the idea of the field mouse, this tiny little thing, scurrying through all this long grass and nobody even noticing it.
Maybe it's time I had another go at coming over all poetic. Now what rhymes with 'Kidderminster'...?