Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unfurl 3 Les WICKS
Unfurl 3 Les WICKS
Poetry
Contents
About Les Wicks
The Session
Time Taken
What is Believed
By the Wayside
« Me – what can I say? Poetry has been a core part of my life since I was about 19 with a largish
gap in the middle pursuing career and family. At its best, poetry can say things unutterable
anywhere else and I’m completely committed to it. I really am now a one trick pony even if the
beast is as thin as poetry is. I edit and run workshops which provides a bit of income but is much
more rewarding on deeper levels. Most of my publishing work is aimed at getting new
audiences rather than “clogging up” pre-existing outlets. Varying approaches, but some
extraordinary outcomes in terms of getting poetry in front of people who wouldn’t normally
encounter it. As for my own work I feel blessed that I have seen publication in rather a lot of
places/countries/languages. I’ve had 14 books out and still love them all despite their attitude
problems, the latest being Belief (Flying Islands, 2019). If you buy a copy you’ll make me very
happy. I constantly work at bettering my poetry, I don’t share (a surprisingly common) delusion
that I am a (grossly unrecognised) International Treasure. Compared to say actors I have
occasionally said I am not a Streep or de Niro, but I aspire to be maybe Brian Dennehy. But
heard today he has died!
http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm »
He’s fat
& a little drunk.
Potbelly is squeezed past shirt buttons
like icing from a piping bag —
that battleground of a sweatstained cotton.
*
This and the following poems are from Les Wick’s book Belief.
I didn’t say
she wouldn’t have acknowledged
that nothing stopped that didn’t need to.
There was no point discussing
contradiction & regret.
She was dying, pancreatic cancer.
Notions of fame & achievement
had walk-on roles, comic relief.
Our respective kids are doing great,
though we are anxious about them.