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Writer and Performer of Poetry

Books

Join me on BBC Essex on the first Thursday of every month at 8pm, where I'll be setting the monthly upload theme and sharing a poem

BOOKS

An Essex Parish

IMG_1694.jpg
Jim-Jam-Julie.jpg

The Celestial Spheres

Contact me directly to purchase
Image by Aaron Burden

POETRY

This Month's Poem

Poetry

Jim-Jam-Julie

This poem was first published on the Inspiration in Isolation website, a project to capture poems of lockdown (inspirationinisolation.co.uk).

Waiting

 

With a handful of the blackest soil, 

The remnants of the years’ decay,

I filled a pot and drilled some holes

With my index finger, poured

Dusty seeds into a hollowed palm,

Laid each husk into its pit,

Pressed back the dirt and waited.

 

Daily I watered them and waited,

Faithfully checked my little garden,

Sheltered it from frost and heat,

But each day the same - nothing -

Even after thirty days of watching;

I began to doubt my silent scions 

would end their isolation. Waiting,

 

I have learned to seek small gifts:

Morning light that greets my eyes,

A leaf that dances on a breeze,

The time that lies beyond despair;

Thirty-two days after planting,

A tiny pair of bright, green blades

Had pushed aside a pebble, strained

Their way up through the earth,

As if hands had lifted to the heavens. 

BIO

David Canning.jpg

David’s poetry has been long-listed in the National Poetry Competition, twice shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and won first prize and a special mention in the Sentinel Quarterly Literary Review. 

 

In 2020 he was commended in the Poetry Society’s annual Stanza Competition his work has been published in several anthologies, in magazines, in film and, in 2019 one of his poems featured on television as part of a garden design project featured on Channel Five’s The Great Gardening Challenge.

David's books are: 

  • An Essex Parish (2015)

  • The Celestial Spheres (2020) both available from Camuluspoetry.co.uk, and 

  • Jim-Jam-Julie (2021) available from olympiapublishers.com.

 

David writes on a range of subjects and his second collection, the Celestial Spheres, published in 2020, includes themes ranging between ambition, constancy, love, war and spirituality, but the central theme relates to how we are often moved or influenced by forces and people unknown and unseen.  

Individual poems talk about migration, identity, masculinity and the long term effects of conflict.  

 

David is also known for his poetry about climbing and mountaineering; he served on the judging panel of the Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain literature in 2020 and 2021.  He lived for a long time in Essex, but now lives in rural Lancashire. 

 

Bio

UPCOMING EVENTS in 2022
 

August

5

Leeds Poetry Festival, TBC

News and Events

May

14

Suffolk Poetry Society Festival

John Peel Centre, Bury St Edmunds

Feb 

3

BBC Essex, Upload show with Rob Jelly, 8pm

Mar

3

BBC Essex, Upload show with Rob Jelly, 8pm

April

7

BBC Essex, Upload show with Rob Jelly, 8pm

Contact

CONTACT

Tel: 01524 222569 | Mob: 07986 597629 | cimacapi@gmail.com

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