Ever since I was gifted a book of limericks as a child I’ve been reading poetry. The cleverness of the rhymes and the odd turns of phrase amused and inspired me.

 

​During A-level English I was introduced to War Poetry from assorted poets including Wilfred Owen, reading ‘Dulce et decorum est’ was a revelation. I realised that creative writing wasn't confined to fiction, to fantastical stories, and could be more gripping when it was about the real world, this pushed me to explore non-fiction.

 

​After years of writing poetry for fun, I started rimple.shymes, challenging myself to write a short poem every day. I tried to keep the poems light, uplifting and positive but serious topics need to be addressed as well and so some of the poems do not shy away from tackling more sombre real-world topics.

 

My love for simple, playful, clever rhymes has never wavered. Although I'm aware rhyming is considered (at best) an entry point into poetry, a piece always feels incomplete until I can make the words sing, even a little. The limericks, it would appear, have left a mark.

 

​Working to build rimple.shymes in 2019, I kept consistent updates. Publishing over 200 poems and then took a break. I wanted to create my own background images for poems and take more time to write each one.

Posting began again in January 2023, one a week, each with their own image that I've taken a photograph for or otherwise created.

Taking a short break I assembled and edited photos taken during the summer’s of 2022 and 2023, composed poems for them and then edited a book -

Under the summer sun - volume one
 

The book is available on Amazon, the poems will all be available for free on site and on my four social media accounts as videos, I’m releasing one a day for 50 days, mirroring each poem in the book.
 

Links to the rimple.shymes social media accounts are below.