Writing poetry, for me, has sprung from a happy congruence between the time, the place and the people I have been able to connect with.

To work at words as a maker’s craft needs an investment of time, literally and emotionally. And an awareness of place, in the sense of both body and mind, gives heft and context to poetry. Most important of all is relationship to other people. I like this quotation from Frank Close, a particle physicist: “We are formed from atoms that have existed for billions of years. It is only now that they are configured in combinations that think they are us”.

Hence the title of this first collection, which plays with the theme of the opening poem, Between. Creativity may come from some inner impulse, but its desire is to connect with other people. Poetry calls for imagination in both writer and reader, the kind of imagination which does not invent stuff, but rather reveals truths that already exist.

I want to identify and disclose the way that those old atoms are currently configured!

I seek to do that with whatever means are at my poetic disposal, including humour, sensuality, thought and feeling. I hope you will find something to enjoy here.

Ted Eames

Below is an excerpt from the book, a poem titled Between. Please contact me to purchase a copy of Between Me and You

Between

Terminal.

It’s a strange word for a jumping off point,

a portal into Between.

Between is a happy place to be.

What happens in Between

stays in Between.

It has had a bad press,

but Between is a fine place to talk, to listen,

to hear confession and to confess.

There are fewer rules in Between;

conversations cut quickly to the truth,

and knowledge, for once,

beats information.

The ferry, the bridge,

the border, the threshold:

liminal beings one and all –

though the ferry is closest

to the sublime spark gap,

the vault of the current

from pole to pole,

from shore to shore,

from one to other.

Between is where words in brackets

outweigh the rest of the sentence.

It’s a good word for the enclosure of connection.

Terminal.

Ted Eames