About

©Janet Henderson Casting A Pebble 2019

Welcome to my poetry blog. Like a lot of people over the last few years, I've been really excited by the possibilities of blogging. It's a wonderful way to share ideas and information, to find inspiration in unlikely places, and to begin to organise your thoughts into print. What I produce in a blog is always, I feel, penultimate - it could be improved, it might form the basis for something else or it might disappear, deservedly, into the mists of oblivion. 

So here I offer you some of my poetry which may or may not appear in its final form. Alongside this, there will be various articles about my sources of inspiration, publishing opportunities and the process of writing itself.

I grew up in mid Wales where the main activities of my youth were music-making closely followed by reading, writing and walking in the mountains. My father was a forester and knew all the most remote spots and how to get to them. Occasionally we had more difficulty finding our way back! The Anglo Welsh poets like Dannie Abse, Alun Lewis, RS Thomas, Dylan Thomas, David Jones and Saunders Lewis were hugely influential. Since then, interests have ranged over Russian literature, the twentieth century novel and Judeo-Christian spirituality, thought and theology. But I'm pretty much an omnivore when it comes to reading.

I've worked as a music teacher, nurse and priest and, essentially, I don't think you ever stop being any of those things once they get under your skin. I love all things Welsh but I am an adoptee of Yorkshire and love the North East of England too. I have spent life-giving time in Sri Lanka and the Czech Republic. My parents worked in Ghana and some of my earliest memories are of tales about life there. 

I love swimming. Two of my most enduring memories are of swimming out of the Xlendi cove on Gozo (Malta) to see the cliffs towering above me in the moonlight, and swimming at Borth (near Aberystwyth) in the very early mornings before school. We used to get told off for arriving in class with wet hair but it was worth it!