I’m particularly pleased to invite, fellow Open University Society Poet, Ross McGivern, to reflect on a poem from his inspirational Fragments and Stages.

As is customary I confess my indecision as to which poem I should present and how the heck would I write about it. Pity the poor poem! First they witness fellow darlings killed and then look on as I pick a teacher’s pet. But here we: A Respite of Bluebells.

‘we navigate paths studded by ferns’

I am unsure if this is my favourite from or indeed representative of Fragments and Stages as a whole. I suspect this stems from how long I have spent with the poems and how I view it conceptually, especially as I have lived with it since 2016. I never intended to write a collection of poems about this subject – I found the thought of doing so exploitative, but…