During the first 2020 UK lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic I wrote poetry daily and these poems were posted on social media as a way of holding space and offering support to the communities I belong to. My hope was (and continues to be) that these poems would shine the light of eternity into the darkness of that shock and fear. These poems are now gathered into one place as a collection called Shattered Vanities for what is true in the worst of times is also true in the best of times.
Yoga practitioners will enjoy spotting the yoga in some of the poems. Please scroll to the end of this email for one of the poems.
The book’s title is inspired by a reading of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes in which all that is ephemeral is known as a vanity. We had believed that our way of life was indestructible but overnight those certainties crumbled and exposed our innate frailty.
The foreword is written by Heather Plett who has pioneered the concept of holding space and the place of poetry within that. It is worth a read in itself.
The book is not commercially available as I want to keep to the values under which the poetry was originally written – an offering of connection and intimacy. However, the book will go into the British Library and I hope that in the years to come it will help historians, sociologists, psychologists, theologians and anthropologists study the effect of the pandemic at the inner level.
You can order a digital or physical copy by emailing me.
[the image is of me reading poems at the book launch]