We went to our local library in Alsager for an hour this morning, on National Poetry Day in the UK, to see and listen to W Terry Fox read some poetry. I consider it well worth visiting that link to some YouTube performances. It was a fine way to spend time and Barbara also enjoyed it. He talked quite a bit about Mow Cop where he lived for a time and still lives “down bank” a bit at Whitehill. The event attracted an audience of about a dozen, two of whom had travelled from Crewe. It was a free occasion, funded by the Friends of Alsager Library.
Poetry has always been a minor interest of mine, humming quietly along in the background to a life, ever since that A Level course in Eng. Lit. at school with good old “Gabby” Hayes where he introduced us to the beauty of John Keats’ work. Alongside many of his own fine poems, W Terry Fox read Keats’ Ode to Autumn today, (read and hear here) which took me right back to those days in that particular seat in that particular classroom, as clear as if I were there now.
I remember those times with Gabby (middle row, second from the right) as a bejewelled island in a murky sea of dark drudgery and suffering from the rest of my schooldays. There were only four of us in the class, as I remember, which added to the privilege and sheer pleasure of coming from a bookless and often cheerless home to that highly skilled introduction to classic literature over two years that probably helped to nurture whatever semblance of sanity I ever had. Thanks Gabby and Thanks Terry.
Poetry in Chicago? Well, here’s a poem by
Robert Pinsky featured on the excellent website of The Poetry Foundation based there; from such a simple thing like the next time you put on a shirt or skirt, he has fashioned simple but resonant words.
which includes the forecourts of Coventry University 
and the Herbert Art Gallery. The Gallery foyer featured this attractive grafitti:
The History Centre holds Electoral Rolls but is closed on Mondays so I will return another day to try to establish when my Dad moved from London to Coventry, sometime before 1918.
Hummed along to the canal towpath at Rode Heath and joined 
and crossed over the main road through Kidsgrove onto the continuing route up the side of Tesco’s carpark and along the disused rail track to Tunstall. Good surface all the way. Stopped off in Tunstall Park in Victoria Park Road 
for a sandwich and people watching for a while. Looked over the memorial clock tower there 
to 
reached the original towpath 
and on to Kidsgrove and home to Alsager.