A Happy New Year to all readers! I hope you have weathered the festivities well. There are a lot of colds, flu and covid around so I also hope you have not had to deal with any of those. It always takes longer to crank up the energy after Christmas when the days are so short, but I have primroses in the garden, bulbs poking through the soil and even saw a daffodil out in one garden nearby, so spring will eventually arrive. I am going to be a grandmother this spring, all being well! I am writing a lot of new work about mothers and daughters in the poems I am working on with my mentor Rebecca Goss. It is a very rich seam. Certainly, I am finding it interesting to think about my new role and what I have experienced or seen of ‘grandparenthood’ in my life.

Filing is not my favourite occupation but I spent a lot of time in December with my brother’s help sorting out correspondence and art-related documents belonging to my artist mother who died in 2018. I also finalised a set of files to be sent to Suffolk Archives for Suffolk Poetry Society, so I feel slightly less encumbered by boxes at home than I did before. I have not yet tackled going through all my MA files 2018-2020. I am sure a lot can be thrown out, but the gems of advice from tutors should be revisited and kept!

I find it increasingly difficult to keep tabs on my poems. They are filed by date order on yearly files on my computer and also hard copies are kept in notebooks (I don’t attach the poems to the pages, as they can change, so they are kept loose page by page in date order), However if I want to find a poem on a specific topic, it usually means reading through several notebooks to find a suitable poem! I know I should use something like Excel but I have never got on with that. As my output has increased over the years, I often forget what I have written! A nice problem to have no doubt.

My end-of-year review of my poetry in 2023 was encouraging – fewer individuals poems published perhaps but more substantial progress with one pamphlet published, another accepted for September 2024 and receipt of the Arts Council grant. Also, I was delighted that my book with Sula Rubens, ‘Sleeping Under Clouds’, was accepted by the National Poetry Library for inclusion in their collection, so do take a look if you visit the Library at the South Bank Centre in London. It is a great place to suss out the poetry that has been accepted by a range of poetry magazines as they have an extensive collection.

I will end with a link to a website that features poems with a New Year flavour: https://interestingliterature.com/2016/12/10-of-the-best-poems-for-new-year/ . I particularly liked ‘The Old Year’ by John Clare, also featured here along with other poems by Clare.

If you would like to contact me to comment or follow up, please send me an email via the contact box on my website . You can also contact me to buy a signed copy my books

Sleeping Under Clouds (Clayhanger Press) and A City Waking Up (Dempsey and Windle).

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Sue Wallace-Shaddad was born and brought up in Suffolk and now lives there. Sue has an MA in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University with the Poetry School London. She is Secretary of the Suffolk Poetry Society, organizes poetry events and reads her poetry regularly in venues around Suffolk. Sue is the digital writer in residence for Causley Trust’s ‘The Maker’ blog.