Alan C. Brown poet and translator, his group Tyneside Poets meet in old George Pub Coth Market 
Newcastle on Tyne 1st on 2nd and last Tuesday each month at 7.30pm. Married with tow daughters. 
Allan has published several including The Rag Doll People. He has transations of poems 
from Russian by Maya Broisova (From Stoney Shores also Glass Zoo by Galina Gamper). 

Alan recently celebrated his 80th birthday. A gifted, staunchly individualistic poet with a prolific output, 
during his long career has made a lasting contribution to the Tyneside Poetry scene.

A translator all his working life, Alan encouraged cultural exchange between poets from numerous 
Europian countries. By single-minded cultivation of these links he assisted many local poets 
to expand their own litarary horizons beyond Newcastle's walls.

Alan's poetry has appeared in both English and foreign magazines and he has produced many books, 
his most recent success being Golden Girl, an anthology of poetry and illustrations to 
celebrate the City of Newcastle in the Millennium.


 

DIMINISHED

"He learned of finalities beside the grave." 
                                 Robert Frost

Looking too closely he missed out in glimpses 
Other men found undiminished by doubt;
Yet wearing the mask of distinct clear statement 
Framed questions that took us all by the throat.

Bland understatement was his preferred manner, 
A world made better? He wouldn't buy that. 
How odd it was that he nailed to his banner
The simple man's smile, the farmer's slouch gait,

Having neither of these, he resembled Peer Gynt 
Whom the Button Moulder restructured - because 
Being a light to no one but himself 
He drifted like Borrow, Like Melville was 
A craftsman with words and a wanderer both; 
Yet wise, with a night-owl's sinister stealth.


ASK ANY SAINT

"We must love our own poverty, as Jesus loves it."
                                    Thomas Merton


Think your own thoughts, do your own thing - alas 
Unlike the Desert within, where few survive, 
Most of us chose the easy way, and pass 
Into distractions - where Love cannot live.

What to do then? Uprooted from our selves 
How can we keep the spark within alive? 
Don't compromise, be patient with yourselves; 
Only by honest courage can you thrive

And grow aware of God in everything,
And yes, content with what we have right now, 
This alone can to our weak struggles bring 
Us to a place, unlike the one we know, 
One wholly other, ever emerald green, 
With nothing overhead - or in between.


OPAGUE FLESH
"I do not disapprove of anything"
                                         Daphne du Maurier

Shy one, nourished by mildewed stone, dry branches, 
Masts in a white harbour masked by acid time 
Who are you? A surface full of glassy myths? 
Chisel-cheeked rock - an out crop? 
Gull cries, sea-tide, sand-pebbled heart-beat? 
Blood surge, a weather-cock titled sideways? 
Moon-pulled lusts - white words, a bright downpour?

Shy one, arriving at rusted gates, unable to enter. 
Bracketed with your books; but always other
In and outside them. Roofed by tongued Cornish houses. 
Abandoned to stone's pungent smell, blanched language, 
Early humiliations, sex and its absence, 
A vacant stage, inhabited by thin, walled-in ghosts. 
The more we know - the less. Masked one Why's that?

Losses met everywhere. Leaf-shadowed, the war years. 
A landscape searching for childlike love, aloneness. 
Heart beat of sea-shells, smells of tarred rope, raw iron, 
Cornwall's antique dark, long hill-walks at sunset, 
The stone house and your dogs, re-establishing love 
And meaning where little was, but the task of writing¬-
your first love and your last. God's help un-headed.

A wood but among trees, where you encounter 
Memory in the dark; make private legends, 
This most of your life was all you needed
No other knot of needs. These you met beaming 
Until chill age iced your skin and left you 
Unstable, dependant. At last almost word-less. 
How can one eat an elephant? Bit by bit slowly. 
You did so, leaving us all your poignant gold.