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Vicky's Verse is the new collective home of my creative outpourings.
I love words. Particularly the ones that manage to conjure up an intensity of emotion and are capable of evoking an immediate response. Be that a nodding of heads, understanding, anger, compassion, pain, love, faith or hope.
I write about what I know and things that affects us all - love, life, loss, feelings, relationships, learning, communications, connections and lots of different experiences.
I am the author of three poetry anthologies, which according to my mum are “powerful and provocative.”, whilst my friends say they are “touching, heartfelt and very moving.”
Make up your own mind.
Happy reading
About
I grew up in North Yorkshire and from an early age was a voracious reader. My mum loved poetry and would recite aloud (often from memory) her favourites. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walter de la Mare, Edward Lear and A.A. Milne were my constant companions. I loved the words, the rhyme and the rhythm of these poets and knew then that poetry would be a part of my life.
Throughout my childhood I dabbled in writing my own. I remember being on a family holiday in France, in the Loire Valley overlooking the town of Chinon and constructing my first poem aged 10. My parents were delighted at my flash of creativity. That helped give me some confidence to write more.
I studied English A-Level and through that discovered a new raft of poets, Brian Pattern, John Cooper Clarke, Thom Gunn, Wendy Cope, Carol Ann Duffy and Stella Benson. The style of these new heroes of verse and the issues which they dealt with, helped me to write and enter a poem into a local poetry competition about a complicated relationship. No one was more surprised than me when I won.
Over the next 20 years, I continue to write more poetry, many unfinished, but all inspired by people, events, feelings and firsthand experiences. Friends and family also commissioned me to write tailored rhyming poems for special occasions like weddings, christenings and anniversaries, which were always well received. I collected several files worth in the end, but rarely revised or revisited them.
It was in 2020, as I celebrated a milestone birthday, that I decided that my words needed an audience, so over two lockdowns I began to sift through the hundreds of poems and selected what I thought was a sufficient amount and of the right quality for my first anthology. And then the dreaded editing began. It's hard being brutal about your own work, but you have to do it. So after many months I felt I was ready for the next step.
Self-publishing was the only choice for someone like me without a track record. Fortunately, I was introduced to a great local publisher and with their help, Eighty Eight arrived in December 2020, followed two years later by What Will People Think? And finally in 2024 the trio was completed with Not For Everybody.
Why poetry?
I have little patience, so writing a novel was never going to be my thing. I write poetry because I often find it easier to write emotions down, rather than vocalise them. Over the years, my themes haven't really changed. I write about what I know and things that affects us all – love, life, loss, feelings, relationships, learning, communications, connections and experiences.
Words are powerful, they can soothe, connect, instruct or encourage. They can also hurt, cause pain and be damaging. The only result I've ever wanted is for them to resonate with my audience, meaning you are not alone and what you are experiencing is not new and can be overcome.
I used to think that good poetry had to rhyme and scan, but that is simply not the case. Some of mine do, but the majority are what I term free verse. Where their very structure, layout, rhyme and rhythm is different.
Overall, I want to share happenings (not all related to me) that require the careful selection of words. I want my readers to be faced with poems that are honest, heartfelt and personal, capable of showcasing a multitude of emotions, and highlighting that there is often a way forwards, even if you can't see it at the time.
Books
I have written three anthologies to date.
Not For Everybody (2024)
The third and most recent anthology focuses on our six mental faculties - intuition, imagination, perception, reason, will and memory.
'I love reading Vicky's poetry, I can relate on so many levels. It has made me cry, laugh out loud and some lines have stayed with me since my very first reading. Her writing is insightful and very cleverly crafted. You can only be enriched by reading it.'
Click on the links below for more information and to order your copy.
What Will People Think (2022)
The second anthology captures the dilemmas of a middle-aged women navigating her way in an increasingly fast-paced, hormonal and often confusing world.
'Extremely well written. Many of the poems resonated with me and it's a book I will return to again and again.'
Click on the links below for more information and to order your copy.
Eighty Eight (2020)
The first anthology was a lockdown aided and assisted project, which covers themes such as teenage angst, relationships and the highs and lows of being both in and out of love.
'Touching, heartfelt and very moving. So much to strike a chord with many a woman.'
Click on the links below for more information and to order your copy.
Words
A quick insight into my writing style:
Not For Everybody
- Squander
- Truth or Hyperbole
What Will People Think?
- Inside
- Agenda
Eighty Eight
- Half-Truths
- The Harder They Fall
