ZOOMING WITH THE 1000 MONKEYS IN AUGUST 2025

In the steamy heat of Surrey on August 7th we had a bumper crop of fifteen poets reading with us. We welcomed them all, in a session packed with good things. We didn't record the meeting, so to tell you about the poems I'm depending on notes I made during the readings. Rather incomplete and scrappy notes, I'm afraid, but here goes... 

Dónall's introductory poem was 'The Essential Ingredient' — at first sight an unseasonable Christmas poem, but actually quite topical — an account of his sister's recipe for Christmas cake, which of course she baked mid-year and fed for four months with brandy,.which is the essential ingredient of Dónall's title. 

We were very happy to see Belinda Singleton again, with her three poems.'Two Lists', one for forgetting and the other for remembrance, struck a chord with me — my memory is growing randomly selective these days. And Belinda managed to make a very good poem out of the very annoying phenomenon of local roads closed for weeks for repairs. In her third poem, 'Zeus was rumbled', according to the note I made while I listened!

Rod Whitworth was another old friend we were glad to see again after a break. His poem, 'I prefer...', inspired by one by Wislawa Szymborska, is one of my favourites., and 'Trees' was a version of one from his 2024 collection 'My Family and other Birds'.

Derek Sellen brought 'Labyrinthitis' to the mix and followed it with memories of another August day, the twenty-first, in 1968, when he was on a cycling holiday and later realised that tanks had entered Prague on that same day.

Anne Alexander read 'River Guardian and a poem from Enfield Poets' pamphlet 'Shades of Faulty Hall.'

Lorri Pimlott reminded us that however cute robins look, they are actually 'killing machines'! And nature red in tooth and claw — or at least in sting — continued in her poem about pottery wasps.

Jeremy Loynes chose two of his poems about people —"Gerald Lives Alone' and 'Jungle'. Perhaps living alone would have been easier for the estranged couple in his second 'Jungle'.

Clive Donovan had a zen monk and a cat watching each other in a sand garden, and Tony Hancock, that ironic depressive comedian, asking 'What's the point?' 'Your own particular thunder/no-one else can steal'. and 'Witness it!'

Greg Smith visualised 'among the dim lights of television' assembling all the artefacts we need to travel to the afterlife't. He also recalled his Gran's insistence 'Don't count your chickens' (in a villanelle) and a 'Red Grouse'.

Carolyn O'Connell looked back on her childhood and asked 'What's the best land to live in?', to which she replied 'Norway'. "It takes forever to get to Waterloo" she complained (in another poem, not travelling from Norway!)

David Bleiman, another friend we hadn't seen for a while, had his mind on 'Fossil Foreplay', then gave us a love poem in Scots, and 'The Journal of the Pie Guy ("The audience are cussing and running away...!")

Christine Vial read two poems published in South Bank Poetry Magazine: 'Van Morrison is alive and well and playing at Atlantic City' and 'Enjoying the Craic'.

Aaron Barschak had a ram's horn to flourish as he performed his 'Poetry as an insurgent act'.

Gerald Killingworth — another old friend we welcomed back — has a new collection of his poems, titled Fabric and he read three poems from it: 'Sambridges', 'Trench-foot' and Nan's Pantry'. 

Daphne Milne, one of the two winners of the Brian Dempsey Memorial pamphlet prize,  read 'Indigo Spring' and a poem on neurodiversity.

And Peter Wilkinson took us to'Christchurch Lodge' and 'Winlatter Forest'.

So in August we were heartened and entertained as always by the variety and the music of our readers' poems.  On September 2nd, we'll be zooming again as The 1000 Monkeys, with a new line-up of our  poetry friends. As ever, it will be a warming hour of kindly words. We're going to offer to record the poems and may publish the recording here, with the readers' permission.

On Tuesday 2nd September we'll hear poems from 
Lorri Pimlott
Tony Watts
Rosie Barrett
Mantz Yorke
Jean Hall
Marek Urbanowicz
Evanthe Blandy
Ray Pool
Chrys Salt
Jamie Hammond
Judith Wozniak
Phil Lawder​

Listeners are important too — we hope you will be able to join us at 7:30 on the 2nd September. If you would like us to send you the links for our events, just email us at [email protected], by the end of Monday 1st September 2025