Poetry from John Looker

.This site began in 2009 as a place to share my own poems. At first I wrote under my own name (John Stevens) but later adopted the pen name of John Looker – that was partly to avoid confusion with other writers, but principally to honour my mother and her father, after whom I had been named.

WELCOME 

I began this blog with a poem that contains the following thought:

” … any idea, charged with emotion or imagination,
can be put into plain language;
but it lives longer, travels farther,
changes more lives
as poetry. “

That being the basic idea behind the blog, I originally called the website “The poetry:prose/prose:poetry converter”, taken from that initial poem which pretended that you could now buy a device, or an app, to turn prosaic thoughts into poetry and vice versa:

“Today sees the launch of a new and exciting product
made for your pocket or bag:
the poetry:prose/prose:poetry converter.
We call it
the  P4C … “

If you would like to read that poem in full, you will find it on the page marked “The first poem”.

THE HEADER PHOTO

The picture above is a view of the coast in north east England (Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland), taken from a photo by Tom Stevens.   

I like the way this picture combines the grandeur of the natural world with human life, both past and present.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I live in south east England with my wife, Frances. Now retired, there is more time for a life-long interest in literature and above all in reading and writing poetry.

My poetry has been published in journals in Britain, the USA, India and Australia and in anthologies in the USA and Britain. A recent poem was Highly Commended in New Zealand’s Caselberg Trust’s International Competition. I was invited to contribute to the commemorative anthology of the Texas International Poetry Festival’s 20th anniversary, and to other anthologies in Britain, the USA and New Zealand.

PUBLICATIONS

Three collections have been published by Bennison Books:

The Human Hive (2015) which looks at life through work with poems featuring human activity and emotion down the ages and round the globe;

Poems for my Family (2019) – this being primarily a personal collection for my family; and a third:

Shimmering Horizons, August 2021, with the theme of the journey, the quest, the odyssey.

You can see a selection of poems from the books on other pages of this website. The books themselves  can be bought through Amazon:

In the UK for £3.99 at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=john+looker&crid=1LYZQJ7KLI9WF&sprefix=john+looker%2Caps%2C153&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_11

In the USA for $4.99 at:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=john+looker&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&ref=nb_sb_noss

Available in the EU at 4,99 euros and of course in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.