The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Mike Barlow

A round yellow ball with two eyes and a big smile.

This barter of enthusiasm 3

Mike Barlow, Helena Nelson and Martin Figura choose favourite funny-serious poems by e. e. cummings, Mark Halliday and Peter Howard

Smiley yellow ball photograph by Chaitanya Pillala on Unsplash
Slightly abstract painting in block colours, Yellow, beige, green, grey, sky blue, representing a building, the sky with a sun or a moon and a single window. oh, and some bricks

Whichever life we live, it’s the other calls

Carl Tomlinson reviews Hotel Anonymous by Mike Barlow (Pindrop, 2021)
Two books with mostly white covers. one cover has a blackened rib, the other a small picture of a blue open door

Essential poetry from Wayleave Press

Richie McCaffery reviews two Wayleave Press pamphlets — Rib by Sharon Black and After by Jane Routh
The Friday Poem 'Hotel Anonymous' by Mike Barlow

Hotel Anonymous

by Mike Barlow — Someone in the room next door / is practising the oboe, those clear / woody notes going over and over / the same bars, never finding perfection, / never satisfied but reminding me / of one particular