Unveiled Poetry Evening

Tim Harrold read a selection of his poems at Unveiled in St Andrew's Wickford this evening. His poems included: 'AntiChrists & False Prophets'; 'Not Enough Tears in the Sea'; 'The Insurrection of Resurrection'; 'Urchin Church'; and 'You are the Tribe of Bezalel', among others. 

Check his poems out at https://www.instagram.com/harrold.tim?igsh=dHFnMzF2dnY5d2I1 and find his Verses versus Viruses collection at https://redballoonpublishing.co.uk/our-books/ols/products/verses-versus-viruses-by-timothy-harrol.

My poems included 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'Barking' from my 'Five Trios' series, a poem about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey which draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. Both have been published by International Times. I also read several poems inspired by the art of Nicola Ravenscroft including 'The Language of Angels', which has been published by Stride Magazine.

Our Parish, and Wickford as a town, has historic links with Wickford in Washington County, Rhode Island, USA. These are links that we are currently seeking to re-establish and, as such, we have made contact with Fr Spencer Reece, who is Vicar of St Paul's in Wickford, Rhode Island. Fr Spencer is a prize-winning poet with a fascinating story in regard to life and ordination, as well as being a writer and artist. 

In my review of ‘Acts’, Fr Spencer's latest poetry collection, for Stride Magazine I wrote: 'He has written that 'A poet, like a priest, works with facts and mysteries: the facts mysterious, the mysteries factual' and has said that what he is after in poems or prose is 'telling the truth in the art'. Time, he suggests, “must somehow be dilated or pass before I can understand much of anything” but, when time has passed, 'in poetry, the autobiography becomes something else entirely, somehow selfless.' This is the essential movement in his life and work which, in the words of Jonathan Farmer, means that he 'offers pastoral attention to the wounded and discarded of the world—including, frequently, himself.' Poems, Reece suggests, are 'spiritual suitcases' which provide 'comfort in the hour of need.'

Tonight, I read a small sample of Fr Spencer's poems from his 'The Road to Emmaus' collection.

Check out the remaining programme of great events this term at Unveiled, our fortnightly Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church (7.00 – 9.00 pm, 11 London Road, Wickford, Essex SS12 0AN):

Unveiled Summer Programme 2025

• 13 June (7.30 pm) – Open Mic Night organised with John Rogers. Everybody is welcome to come along and play, read, sing or just spectate. See you there for a great evening of live performance!
• 28 June (7.00 pm) – The Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields in concert. The Choral Scholars sing for services, concerts and other events at St Martin’s, exploring a huge range of repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day.
• 4 July (7.00 pm) – An evening with Neil Tye. Hear British-born and Denmark-based artist Neil Tye speak about his work; paintings that entice the viewer to be immersed in their colours, shapes, and movement, where hidden images, feelings, or meanings can be revealed.
• 18 July (7.30 pm) – Eva Romanakova and Andrew Palmer in concert. Hear Mezzo-Soprano Eva Romanakova and pianist Andrew Palmer perform a wide selection of music including musical theatre, classical, opera, pop, jazz, folk and songs from the movies.

See http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html and https://basildondeanery.co.uk/index.php/news/ for more information.

These events do not require tickets (just turn up on the night). There will be a collection to cover artist and church costs.

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Tim Harrold - A Blessing.

Stride Magazine: Spiritual Suitcases

Check out my review of Spencer Reece's 'Acts' for Stride Magazine:

'He has written that 'A poet, like a priest, works with facts and mysteries: the facts mysterious, the mysteries factual' and has said that what he is after in poems or prose is 'telling the truth in the art'. Time, he suggests, “must somehow be dilated or pass before I can understand much of anything” but, when time has passed, 'in poetry, the autobiography becomes something else entirely, somehow selfless.' This is the essential movement in his life and work which, in the words of Jonathan Farmer, means that he 'offers pastoral attention to the wounded and discarded of the world—including, frequently, himself.' Poems, Reece suggests, are 'spiritual suitcases' which provide 'comfort in the hour of need.'

Spencer Reece is Vicar of St Paul’s Wickford in Rhode Island. Wickford in Essex (where I am based)  has links with Wickford in Washington County, Rhode Island, USA. To read about these links, including past pulpit exchanges by priests from St Paul's Wickford and St Catherine's Wickford, see Wickford Community Archive here. 

My other reviews for Stride include a review of two poetry collections, one by Mario Petrucci and the other by David Miller, a review of Temporary Archive: Poems by Women of Latin America, a review of Fukushima Dreams by Andrea Moorhead, a review of Endangered Sky by Kelly Grovier and Sean Scully, a review of John F. Deane's Selected & New Poems and a review of God's Little Angel by Sue Hubbard. 

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'. My latest poem, 'The ABC of creativity', has been published by International Times. It cover attention, beginning and creation and can be read here.

I am very pleased to be among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a new anthology forthcoming in 2024 from Amethyst Press. Check in at Amethyst Review for more details, including a publication date in July and an online launch and reading in September. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

Additionally, several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford last Autumn. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

For more on poetry, read my ArtWay interview with David Miller here and my interview with the poet Chris Emery for International Times. My review of 'Modern Fog' by Chris Emery is on Tears in the Fence. I have also written an article for Seen & Unseen 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at http://stridemagazine.co.uk.

I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a poetry reading when I was at St Stephen Walbrook.

Rupert Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction.

He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children).

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Spencer Reece - The Upper Room.

Unveiled Poetry Evening

Tim Harrold and I shared a selection of poetry and prose from our own collections and those of our favourite poets at tonight's Unveiled Poetry Evening in St Andrew's Wickford.

Tim is a poet who creates images of profound challenge and change, of pause and process, of chrysalis and catalyst. His most recent publication is ‘Verses versus Viruses’. A selection of his filmed Encounter poems and 'A Blessing' (see above) were shown.

My poems and stories have been published by Amethyst Review, International Times and Stride Magazine. I read my short story 'The Clean Up King' and the following poems:

• The ABC of creativity
• The language of angels
• Meditation on Alan Oldfield's Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich
• Runwell
• Dylan Thomas was more at home with Blake and Vaughan than Marx and Proust
• Windows into the divine
• Not the blind man with the lamp

I also read poems by John F. Deane, Mary Oliver and Spencer Reece, while Tim read poems by E.E. Cummings, W.H. Auden, Wilfred Owen and T.S. Eliot. 

One of those in the audience commented: "A really good evening, stimulating and thought provoking, deepening awareness of how human creativity opens us to a greater sense of God’s creative presence in the world around us."

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Tim Harrold - Endeavour 54.