I was, as they used to say in Manchester, dead chuffed to have one of my poems published in the latest edition of the distinguished British literary journal, Acumen.
The poem was a remembered moment, an epiphany, in fact, when, at the age of around eleven, I had my first pair of glasses to correct the previously undetected sightedness that I had probably had for most of my childhood. I had got used to not seeing as others saw and, in all honesty, I wasn’t sure about this new clarity of vision. It was, maybe, a more dramatic experience for me because it happened when I was a pupil in a rather formal English private boarding school in West Sussex.
In truth, I suspect I had always squinted but no one, including me, had noticed that I couldn’t see things clearly. The squint in this photograph of little me is probably how I always looked until glasses. Here I was on the beach by my family home in Sussex and I remember its beauty, all my childhood memories are set in summer holiday mode, but I am sure I was seeing everything in soft-focus.
I am delighted to be published in Acumen and if you want to see a copy here is the link: https://www.acumen-poetry.co.uk/issues/
