peace poems

I read two poems, edit and the Pact at the recent Poets for Peace event and they were well received by the Southside Poets. I liked the venue, Manning Clark House which was full of old books and winter sun streaming brightly in. It made me laugh to see photos of my old agriculture teacher Roland Clark on the shelves, as he was Manning Clark’s son. Mr Clark’s classes were my favourite for the last few years at grammar. He was a great teacher but the class used to muck around and teased him remorselessly about his mild speech impediment. I remember one day he was late to a lesson so the entire class evacuated the room and ran out to the playground where we climbed up a large tree to hide. I don’t know how he found us, we were well hidden, but he did eventually and I seem to remember that we had our lesson out there.