Syd Meats

We weren’t at Fringe this year. We’re working on a new show. Watch this space!

OCTOBER Poems of the Month An anthology of presence, and disappearance.

Thanks to Stewart and Hayley at Verve for shortlisting my poem She’s In A Better Place. It’s my second appearance in Poem Of The Month since the competition began in April 2025! Congratulations to winner P.A. Erskine and the other runners up.

open.substack.com/pub/vervepoe...

An honourable mention today in the Wetherby Comedy Poem Competition. Congrats to the winners and the other runners up!

Thanks to Alan Buckley for placing my poem We Play The Music of Food in the Highly Commended category for the Charm Poetry Prize. You can read the competition report at www.charmpoetrycompetition.com/p/competitio...

I have seen Flaubert’s parrot!

“Is it loud?”

From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

Do bags of desiccant arrive in the post with additional bags of desiccant to keep them dry? Or are they shipped with bags of moisture to maintain the balance of things?

Play us what we want to hear, Robyn. It is the antidote.

I have an ambivalent relationship with tomatoes.

A reader writes…

“The last time I made a submission to Private Eye was in 1968, when I was 15 years old. I received this wonderful response which I still treasure:” 

JOHN CLIVE

I saw a secondhand camera labelled ‘Pentax AF’ and I wondered exactly *how* Pentax something can be. Apparently it was auto focus!

I can confirm we will finally have the last episode the poetry podcast, Eat the Storms, this saturday and it’s such a joy to have with us once again Vicky Allen reading from her new poetry collection Wonder Lines 🙏😉💙

Love this Hannah Ledlie list poem for the way it makes you gleefully imagine the Queen doing all of the things. More fun in poetry, please :)

Does only the mind boggle? Does anything else boggle?

Haggis, haggis burning bright /
She walks in Beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies / And offal that’s been carbonised

There was a cat that really was gone!

Driving a car as a metaphor for living in a foreign country.

First published in The Rialto, this poem is taken from Whatever You Do, Just Don't (HappenStance Press, 2023), my second full collection...

Teaching on A. R. Ammons today, and his focus on poetry that "leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.” (The poem below first appeared in Poetry magazine - July 1967.)

Did you know that the term ‘mansplain’ derives from a combination of the words ‘man’ and ‘explain’?

Panda-monium and friends 'Mind Games' | The Arc, Winchester Panda-monium’s Mind Games will be fun, interactive and appeal to people of all ages, cultures & backgrounds. It’s all about getting happy through song, spoken word, and holistic Panda activities.

Thurs 27 March at Arc: As part of RAW Winchester, Panda-monium and Stewart Taylor present Mind Games. Follow the link below for details and tickets.

www.arcwinchester.org.uk/event/panda-...

Westside!

I’m still writing and performing, so I suppose that’s a win😊 How about you?