Poets who jolly us along with assurances that if winter comes, spring is on its heels, would put it quite differently if writing during the closing days of the Anthropocene. This is our 'summer' issue, but with the honourable exception of a few warmer days, Yorkshire has so far escaped much manifestation that we have emerged from the colder season. All the more reason to consume the writings of imaginative souls who create their own weather, or observe climactic changes of both personal and cosmic significance. Whatever our unease about how humans are behaving in the days of climate change, at least our creativity is keeping AI at bay (or is it ...?).
It's rare that we fail to get poems about the natural world, stories about family relationships, discussions of global politics, and writing that is not necessary primarily about anything but simply putting language through a work out, testing its limits. But how often do you read an ode to a fly? Meet Kurt Cobain in Whitley Bay? Read a lesson plan for anger management? Find black holes in your pockets? Read on.
Bob Beagrie is the first guest in a new feature for Dream Catcher, called 'In conversation with ....'. in which the Editor discusses with a fellow poet not only their current work, but their ideas about poetry, their influences and future plans. Having heard Bob perform his lushly hybrid work, accompanied by musicians using home-made instruments (provoking more questions that it would be polite to ask in just one evening), Bob was invited to the first subject.