(I am very bad at self publicity! I should have announced this weeks ago!)
Poetry Recital
"Three Fools" and other poems
Foredefeated challenges to oblivion published and unpublished over fifty years:
a recital of his poems by Michael Walker
followed by a "name the poem" and "complete the quotation" poetry quiz
The King's Head
13 Westmoreland Street
London W.1
Sunday 28th April 2019
Admission free
Doors open 6.30 pm
Recital begins 7.00 pm
March 2017
November 2015
My latest play has been published and is available via Amazon. The name of the play is "The Return of Odysseus" and it is a retelling of the legend of the return of the redeemer King. I earn myself a modest royalty on every copy sold, so the more who buy a copy, the merrier I become, quite apart from the vanity aspect. I should be very happy indeed to hear from anyone who is interested in, or could make useful suggestions regarding, readings, presentations, promotional events and especially productions and translations. Write to Jenkins.[email protected]
October 2016
I am in the unusual position of, so to speak, breaking my own copyright and have to remove a number of my own poems from my own blogsite! The background to this is something which I have been wondering about for years in its many aspects, namely the conflict between material published in paper format and online. I have been submitting poems to poetry magazines for many years and occasionally have had the fortune to have my poems accepted. I have now been told by poetry editors that a poem will not be published in their publication if the poem in question "has been published anywhere else", and "anywhere else" includes online, on my own peotry blog. Put simply, any poem "published" here has seriously spoiled its chances of being published commercially in a poetry magazine. For that reason I have decided, rather reluctantly, to remove the "hopefuls" from this blog, leaving only the wall flowers, which sadly I do not expect to be published or which I am not intending in the near future to submit for publication and of course the "happy few" of successful contenders which have already been published somewhere in paper format or on another website. Hopefully, some poems which I am removing now will reappear here again, as successful poems.
January 2017
Now I am starting to bring my poems back to this site, having (see above) removed them! I wonder what readers think: how important, how much a certificate of credibility, is publication in a commercial, or at least accredited, poetry magazine, especially compared to say publication on a blog like this? The story is this: I have discovered that many poetry magazines automatically reject poems which can be viewed anywhere on the internet, including on private blogs. Structo magazine is a notable exception but most poetry magazines do seem to follow this policy. The more I think about it, the more I think it is wrongheaded. Views from readers on this subject would be welcome.
March/April 2017
I now have a translator for my play, The Return of Odysseus. To be exact, I have two translators, one for French and one for German.
In case anyone is interested in the play who has not yet seen it, here is the link to amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Return-Odysseus-Michael-Walker/dp/151534039
May 2018
How time passes, so long since I last wrote writing news. The bad news is that I have lost both my French and German translators for "The Return of Odysseus". They obviously got cold feet when they saw how long the play was. So, if anyone is interested....
I am off to Berlin soon to meet people from Junge Fraiheit at their summer festival. It will provide a chance to meet fellow scriblers and perhaps I shall write a short story in a sunny cafe somewhere, a stroy which has been in my head for a while but not on paper.
I hope to give a poetry reading in London soon. When I have a definite date and venue, I shall of course publish them here. I wonder if I shall be able to find a fellow poet to share the evening with?
Watch this space.
February 2019
No fellow poet to date. Will be looking for a place in London for a reading in February.
Most of the "hopefuls" are back. Give them a warm welcome by reading and enjoying them.