The highlight of my long but sporadic career as a poet (a single day when aged eleven two weeks now at fifty-two) was when our teacher Mr Palmer one day announced that our class would spend the morning writing poems, and couldn’t go out in the playground until we’d each completed at least one
illustration by Anya Lauri
It doesn’t have to rhyme he reassured us just write down what you feel A strange instruction at the time which lead to lots of head-scratching
After some minutes before a blank sheet of A4 some silly idea probably copied from something I’d seen on TV came spurting from my pencil lead: half a dozen verses in dramatic style I wish I had them still
Later, I was called to the stage to read aloud at assembly The headmaster introduced me: Daniel Stephens has written a poem
Famous for two minutes, there followed a long hiatus