Welcome to the Northern Poets Society Page

By M Gilsenan, she was inspired by my art to create poetry of her own 

Same men walking the same paths

Into these pubs of past

Bits of them in each nook and cranny

Built from the ash of the Salfordian manny

His high-vis jacket covered in dust

Contrast to the young ones

Out for a drink and a dance,

Inside the glass that stands where the patrons 

Of pubs of past used to dance.

It’s advancement 

and more planned works

In a city that hides its bones

Between silent beams

But it's progressive,

It’s development,

It's good for the community.

To displace us and replace us with

Shiny towers so high and mighty

To create harmonies of old and new, 

Derelict, is a replicate, of what this used to be

Salfords community scene

Replaced with glass and steel,

Metal and tin, no more drinking in

The pubs and inns

Remembering how it all started with 

One man’s working hands

Now forced to leave his only land

He built brick-by-brick

By big city business

Driving up the prices

To change our city, bit by bit, 

Gentrifying and hiding

The skeletons on the streets

Big city business doesn’t want to see

But they don't forget to honour ‘em with 

Monuments

Plaques

About the labourer's acts from 

Days gone past 

These docks used to be the lifeblood 

Of the Manchester working scene

Now it's all big screens and tv’s  

And the rest of us are asking where we fit.

In this new city that doesn’t seem to give ashit

Whether we can afford to eat but -

Come and see, where history and technological

advancements meet

Ignoring the pleas of the people sleeping rough

and parents who can’t afford to give up.

What’s the difference between them and us,

You and me.

That's now the reality of living in the big city.

https://youtu.be/ZzPwBBSPvAs

M Gilsenan is a queer poet and artist, their work focuses on their experiences of PTSD, queer identity, and exploring the neverending sense of needing to find somewhere or something to "belong too". They also use their art and poetry to bring light to current political strifes, and struggles of the underrepresented. 

 Mahmoud Darwish -  he was born in a village that was later razed and destroyed by the IDF, he spent many years living in exile in Beirut and Paris, he was also imprisoned as he was deemed to be a ‘resistance poet’. His words are embedded now in Palestine country, with his poems becoming murals in refugee camps, and studied by academics, his poems, became songs of resilience during his imprisonment and still are today

I COME FROM THERE.

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....

https://youtu.be/JoVF-E-pL8M

M Gilsenan is a queer poet and artist, their work focuses on their experiences of PTSD, queer identity, and exploring the neverending sense of needing to find somewhere or something to "belong too". They also use their art and poetry to bring light to current political strifes, and struggles of the underrepresented. 

by Emma -Jane Barlow,  she was inspired by my art to create poetry of her own 

I am from a cotton mill town

where everyone knows your name and face.

Time moves differently in this kind of place.

An enclosed space. 

Where dreams do not reach the sun. 

And for as long as I can remember, 

I fantasised the run. 

How I would seek more adventures 

beyond the fence of this cotton mill town. 

How I would create a new story without the characters I had known since my adolescence. 

And I did it at twenty-nine. I crossed the line. 

I moved away from my cotton mill town.

Planted seeds in new grounds. 

But when I look around.

I still remember. I remember where I came from.

I remember playing kirby on 

pavements of a terraced street.

I remember trips to the 

corner shop for rhubarb sweets.

I remember the parks, swings and scraped knees. 

I remember moving to another house at nine. Where more sweet and 

sour memories unravelled with time.

High school angst and teenage growth.

Happiness and sadness, I experienced both.

I remember the places and faces as bold as brass.

Cartwheels with my sister on fields of grass.

Romance blooming next to the cenotaph.

It lives in me like a sepia photograph.

Stories weaving roots in my mind.

You cannot escape what you leave behind.

It becomes a part of you like blood and bone.

Our childhood etched like crayons on stone.

I remember testing limits

in pubs and clubs at eighteen.

Chaos and calm and everything in between.

Love and friendships, trauma and grief.

As I changed my identity, some long, some brief.

In the end, I didn't move far, 

and my family roots stayed.

But I'll never forget the small town

where I was made.

My heart was always yearning for something new.

Now I reside in another small town

because the city life won't do.

I am from a cotton mill town where everyone knows your name and face.

And even when you part, 

a fragment of your heart still remains 

in such a place.

©Emma-Jane Barlow 

@emmajanepoetry 

Emma-Jane Barlow (known as EJ) is a bestselling northern poet, author, content creator, songwriter, singer and creative. She has been writing poetry since the age of seven and finds comfort in writing about her life experiences. From living life through an autistic lens to the highs and lows of love, loss and everything in between. She has two self-published books Darkness & Light and Sins & Sunflowers: Second Edition. She has been featured in multiple anthologies, quoted in Salford Now newspaper and her work has been featured live on BBC Radio Manchester. She is now working on several creative projects at once to explore her love of storytelling. Find out more about EJ on her website www.emmajanebarlow.co.uk.

by Bea  she was inspired by my art to create poetry of her own 

by Andrew Alan Matthews 

 by Michael Burton

On a drystone wall she sits slumped, 

comically plump, a rain cloud grey 

hangs aptly above her. 

She’s far from home he is no doubt, 

so townly her demeanour, her shy eyes 

gazed down, her feathers browned with filth. 

Perhaps she is an urban outcast 

banished here for crimes of greed, malice  

or cowardice by the leaders of her band. 

Or possibly, it was a morning daze which 

sent her soaring out of kilter, 

not to know how close new worlds can lay.  

Either way, now he worries for her future, 

for when the dark country night drains the pasture 

and its stark silence so naturally proceeds. 

Suddenly, a flutter in his chest like the panicked  

wings that’ll beat as fast and manic as they can  

but not tonight to take her where she wants to be. 

https://youtu.be/xqP4we_XM8E

Blurb:

Michael Burton is from East Lancashire and his poems have been published most recently in The Interpreter’s House, The Honest Ulsterman & Pennine Platform and a poem of his ‘The Silence Treatment’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021. He also writes and performs as NotAnotherPoet and is one half of the band New Age of Decay whose debut album can be found on various online streaming platforms. 

by Michael Burton

After Raymond Antrobus 

you all changed | all strange tastes |  

new age | highbrow | holier than thou | 

you all head down | shy-faced 

round town | all flat cap| man bag | 

you all dressed up | all plaid | all sandals | 

soft lad | smelling all tea tree | potpourri | 

you quit the smokes? | gone all woke? | all lame-  

arse jokes | all posh speak | all prim | proper geek | 

you all scrawny | weak | arty-chic | 

all posh job | all snob now | away too long pal | 

one of them now | all big city flat | think you’re all that  

but where’re your mates now? | what’s brought you back? 

https://youtu.be/ifThsSt5uqM

Blurb:

Michael Burton is from East Lancashire and his poems have been published most recently in The Interpreter’s House, The Honest Ulsterman & Pennine Platform and a poem of his ‘The Silence Treatment’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021. He also writes and performs as NotAnotherPoet and is one half of the band New Age of Decay whose debut album can be found on various online streaming platforms.  

by 

by Danielle

by Joseph Conway 

Very Good 1st Attempt

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