POETRY AND PROSE

Downloads of poems and prose are gathered under LISTEN AND READ at the bottom of this page.

POETRY
I’ve been writing poetry since I was 7 when I wrote a nice poem about flowers for my Mother.

Since then I’ve experimented with traditional forms of lyric and epic poetry, informed by occasional work as a song lyric writer, as well as less structured and innovative forms. While I don’t have a personal poetic manifesto, I do have a number of strongly-held beliefs about poetry:

• at one level it’s a complex craft you have to learn; at another it's a social activity which anyone can take part in. You don't have to chose between poetry slams and annotated texts - they're both part of poetry;
• poems – like any other form of art – are specialised forms of the letter or e-mail. They might get lost but they can reach one or many people, at which point they will either communicate or not and what they'll communicate is a matter of particular circumstances. If you’re going to take up peoples' time, you might as well make their effort worthwhile – if you can;
• poetry should be able to deal with ideas as well as things, with theories and beliefs as well as surfaces; it can make claims which can be refuted as well as describe appearances, suggest emotions, or raise an issue. Both Pope and Keats were very great poets;
• poetry is important and its' relative unpopularity subtracts something from the way we live. Poetry sings, enacts and discusses deep concerns in ways that help us address them from a new angle.Click here to see a fairly random annotated list of works that enthuse me about poetry, together with an invitation to add to it;
• I don’t believe the fragmented modern world makes long poems – which help us to navigate our confusion – are impossible: in fact I think they’re urgently needed, even if they fail. The great Australian poet Les Murray has proved this. So, I'm having a go....

I have been featured poet at the Henley Arts Festival and have talked on the role of poetry in encouraging business creativity on Radio 5 Live. I published DREAMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Selected Poems 1986 -1996 in 1996, together with a tape of poetry readings and musical performances.

My collections include: WAVE UPON WAVE OF DEMONS– a long poem built around the history and myths of Cambodia; WE USED TO SING – which is dedicated to the Cornish poet Charles Causley; THE GOLDEN ROAD TO UNLIMITED DEVOTION – a set of poems drawing on the life of the guitarist Jerry Garcia and FANUM, a set of 14 line lyrics based on Margaret Visser's great book THE GEOMETRY OF LOVE..

I have been working on my latest poem MESSENGER since September 2005. It takes its starting point from Dante’s Divine Comedy. In that work a living man walks among the dead. In MESSENGER, the main character is blown up at Paddington station and then walks the world trying, initially, to find out

“whodunit ?”.

MESSENGER will be in three books. Each book has a different focus. Book one is basically written in conventional blank verse but keeps breaking out into other forms from very wild free verse and lyrics to prose. I use different typefaces  to add a "design element" to each page. Poetry is for the eye as well as the ear.

Limited numbers of copies of my Selected Poems DREAMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES are still available, priced £ 5 plus p & p. Ring me on 07966 509390 or e-mail on ian.florance@btinternet.com to order a copy.

You can also contact me if you want to arrange a reading, with or without musicians.

PROSE
Following JUNGLE ADVENTURE and SPY STORY ( both written when I was about nine, the latter containing a very daring love scene ) I have written four novels and a number of essays and short stories.

My most recent novel is A GLASS ROPE. It takes place 40-60 years in the future. The world has changed in some respects but is the same in many others. A pedantic, middle-aged tutor’s rather mundane life is suddenly turned on its head by an ex-student. He begins to review his past and finds out that much of what he thought about it is a lie.

SCRIPTS AND DRAMA
I have written scripts with both Steve Bennett and Christopher Ring. The FAMILY SILVER, a play I wrote with Chris, was performed over three nights. Recently, Chris and I have been working on:

NORMAL SERVICE: A TV sitcom based on a commuter journey to London. Sometimes known as "Cheers on wheels", it features a cenral group of characters who meet every morning and evening on a train- but hardly know each other. It's written in the broad British sitcom style of " Are You Being Served" and " Dad's Army" with unexplained surrealistic sight gags.

CLEAN SHEETS: A comedy drama series about the relationship between an ex-hippie mother and her entrepreneurial daughter

LISTEN AND READ
Click on the links below to see pdfs of some of the things I’ve written

Messenger

>> Click here to read a section of this work in progress.

Poem for the Month

>> April's poem is "Two Spanish Buildings". Click the title to read it.

A Glass Rope

>> Click here to read the opening A GLASS ROPE.

Normal Service

>>Click here to read the first episode of this sitcom.

World War in Umbria
WORLD WAR In Umbria is a long essay on Italian art, religion, Iraq and a number of other matters.

>> Click here to read the opening

All poetry and prose is ©Ian Florance, All Rights Reserved except where indicated..

I’m happy for you to download and print one copy of these files for private reading. If you would like to receive full version of excerpted works do contact me. I am investigating publishing some of these works formally: let me know if you want to be kept updated.