Not the swimming kind of dip unfortunately. I quite often feel low, veering towards anxious, after lunch. Even after a good morning at my desk. So I am trying to develop the habit of sitting quietly on the bed after lunch, and reading for half an hour or so. I’m not a napper – if I drift off after lunch I wake feeling groggy and headachy. But reading after lunch seems to suit me, and it also tackles one of the things that makes me anxious – those piles of books and magazines waiting to be read.

Over the last few months I’ve caught up on reading most of the purchases I made at this year’s Free Verse Poetry Book Fair (remember that, way back in February?), as well as some of the collections and pamphlets I bought at the beginning of lockdown. I’ve also read the three magazines I’ve had a poems published in this year – all relative newcomers and all worth checking out. A lot of these I’ve posted about on my Twitter or Instagram accounts, but here’s a very brief run through of those pictured above:

• The Unmapped Woman by Abegail Morley published by Nine Arches Press – incredibly powerful poems about different kinds of loss and grief.
• The Significance of a Dress by Emma Lee published by Arachne Press – wide ranging political and humanitarian concerns are addressed in many of these poems – the plight of refugees, violence against women and the #MeToo movement, with unerring empathy.
• Island of Towers by Clarissa Aykroyd published by Broken Sleep Books – poems with a cool mystery about them.
• they lit fires: lenti hatch o yog by Raine Geoghegan published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press – I love these monologues, haibun and songs drawn from Raine’s Gypsy heritage – just magical.
• Stained Lips by Sue Wrinch published by Morgan’s Eye Press – I bought this from Sue earlier this year, and was so saddened to learn that she died unexpectedly earlier this month. She was a very fine poet, and great supporter of other writers. You can make a donation in her memory to First Story, which supports young writers.
• Happiness FM by Mary Dickins published by Burning Eye Press – a dose of sunshine, wit and verbal wizardry!
• Channel magazine – my first appearance in an Irish publication! And a lovely mix of poetry, short fiction and essay, all concerned one way or another with nature and our environment.
• Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal – I had a poem included in issue 3.  I was so impressed with that issue that I ordered issue 4 when it came out. Editors Suna Afshan and Naush Sabah have created a beautiful, provocative and essential literary journal that deserves to be widely read.
• Finished Creatures – another new kid on the poetry magazine block, and like Channel magazine, championing writing that engages with the environment, and specifically our ‘precarious times’.

I’ve been reading fiction too, but mostly at night. For some reason, poetry is not what I want to read before sleep. So far, the afternoon dip into reading has been helping ease those unsettling anxious feelings. Less screen time would help too, I’m sure, so I’ll sign off here and click that Publish button! Hope you’re all managing these strange times as best you can.