explore | Grilled Cheese

In my rough-hewn voice, I sang a little song about insubstantial love from a Shakespeare play. I wrote this playing my little plastic MIDI keyboard simply as I must, enjoying having it sound like reed pump organ. #PoemsAloud

frankhudson.org/2026/09/26/t...

T.S. Eliot was born on this day in 1888. To celebrate, I am reposting my recording of Journey of the Magi, originally posted at the start of Advent in 2025👇 #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity #botd

Waiting for the Barbarians by C.P. Cavafy was shared on here earlier today by Rima I Anabtawi👇. A simply magnificent poem about the complexities of nationhood, colonialism & identity, so relevant for our times. I felt impelled to record it for #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social

Look what I’ve ordered.

539: A Year in the Pine Barrens

by #poetrycommunity and #poemsaloud stalwart and great friend John Chmura. @johnchmura.bsky.social

What fun, Carmella, carpe diem from Keats the Londoner, Keats the apothecary, who saw in his brother how short life can be, may have sensed his own time would be, so here is in gather ye rosebuds vein.

Worth recording. So here it is. Lines on the Mermaid Tavern by John Keats. Read by me #poemsaloud

Hilary Mantel died on this day in 2022.

Too soon, too soon...

By way of tribute, here’s the brilliant opening of Wolf Hall. Read by me. Writing so poetic in parts that it deserves the label #poemsaloud #dotd #HilaryMantel

A great joy for me this week was the reaction to my poetry on @iamb.uk👇 Thanks again to @markantonyowen.com Do take a look at the rest of the iamb site, which features text & readings by @pascalepetit.bsky.social @betarish.bsky.social @robinince.bsky.social & many more #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity

For #PoemsAbout #Strays @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAloud
here’s a voice from the ancestors (Kenneth Patchen) on the topic today—there’s also fierce guitar. frankhudson.org/2019/12/14/d...

I’ve got my ticket…

Paul Short’s poetry open mics are excellent. Book your place to share your poems or just come and listen. Always a friendly occasion, spent with people who care about language, sensitively chaired by @paulwritespoems.bsky.social

#poetrycommunity #poemsaloud

I’m delighted to be in the current wave of iamb👇, with 3 poems, text and recording: In the Time of the Ice Saints (with thanks to @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social), Metronome (with a deep bow to Beethoven), & Late Snow. My thanks to excellent editor @markantonyowen.com #poetrycommunity #poemsaloud

Robert Browning was a master of the dramatic monologue, who created rich, usually unreliable, often sinister personalities who seem to address us with a mix of self-apologia & self-deception. Here’s one of his most alarming & famous poems, My Last Duchess, read by me for #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity

Seamus Heaney also uses his fine descriptive powers in prose poems in Stations about sectarianism. In ‘July’ he conjures up the Orange July 12 parades, their Old Testament resonance, their encircling menace on the world of a Catholic child. Here’s my reading of July for #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity

The thread below👇 features the poem The Lane by Edward Thomas, a beautiful and suitably strange reflection on the uncanny interpenetration of the seasons and how this can seem to suspend time itself.

I felt impelled to read and record it for #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity