Nil Nil.

I met a poet on Thursday.

Walking past a stall at the Hospice UK Conference, I met Sue Spencer.

She is a poet in residence in a hospice.

Just beforehand I had spotted another poet in residence in a hospice on the attendance list;

Perhaps this is a thing.

Poets and writers and artists in residence; I’d always considered these people of universities or perhaps museums and art galleries. (memories of Don Paterson, Alan Warner & John Burnside…)

But… Health and social care?

Then the realisation; why not? Not just why not, why not?!

Is there not a place in greater need of a connection to art and the spirit than our hospitals, clinics, hospices and care facilities?

The tableau of pain and sorrow; is likely at its most profound in these environments; whether birth or death, the toing and froing of pain or fear.

So, this is a call, to not poets.

But people of expression who wish to lay their hearts on their sleeve and demonstrate that there is more than the mundane, more than the Photo-Shop, awards and propagandist incredulity of magazine covers and glitz; more than the headlines in journals.

Every person, every breath, moment of time is a poetry, an act of creating.