Joan’s ‘Potpourri of Poems’
IN venues across West Dorset Joan Robins is considered to be the county’s answer to Pam Ayres.
Her witty poems take a sideways glance at the problems that affect the people of West Dorset and cover everything from the invasion of city folk to shopping trips to Marks and Spencers in Yeovil.
After a 12-year absence Joan has decided to publish her third and final book of poems. Joan is best known for her playful poems but her latest collection, “A Potpourri of Poems”, also highlights her skill at tackling the more sensitive subjects, in her most varied offering yet.
Here she talks to TOM GLOVER about why this will be her final book.
FOR more than 20 years Joan has been known for her poems and her talks and readings have always proved popular in community halls across the county and further afield.
Despite her reputation it wasn’t until her mid-fifties that she first put pen to paper.
“This all started when my grand daughter, who is 31 now, used to come and stay and ask me to tell a story. She used to give me three totally unrelated objects and I used to make up these stories and she loved it,” Joan recalled.
“I did actually write them down and send them off but it is a very difficult market to get into, writing for children.
“They didn’t get anywhere but that did persuade me to put pen to paper and the poems were just kind of incidental to them at the time.”
Joan began to write poems and verse for friends on birthdays and special occasions but it was at a low point in her life that poetry really helped her through.
She said: “In 1989 my dad died and I wrote a poem for him which was really quite an emotional thing to do. All the time I was writing it I was in floods of tears. Lots of people from the family read it and I think it did us all quite a bit of good to actually express feeling in a poem.
“After that I don’t know quite how it happened but one day I was just sitting quite quietly by myself and I suddenly had this idea of my first poem, ‘Over Exposure’, and from then on they just seemed to keep coming and I do not know how or why.
“I don’t know where it comes from and I wonder why it didn’t come to me till I was in my fifties. I don’t think it would have mattered if I started earlier, I don’t think I would have ever been Pam Ayres.”
But to many of her local fans that is what Joan has become and it was their encouragement that first made her decide to release her first book back in 1992. Especially members of the Beaminster After Eight Club, which she attended at the time, who were particularly keen to see her work published.
Joan said: “I was a bit funny about it at first because I do like to read them myself and I do think that poems need to be read aloud to get the full expression and it’s quite cringe making if somebody starts to read it and it’s not how you want it to sound. It’s terrible really but the trouble is I am so protective of them, they are like my children.”
In 1992 Joan published her first book ‘Poetic Injustice’ complete with illustration from her husband Dick. Joan had 500 copies printed at Creeds Printers and now just two remain.
There was an absence of six years before Joan returned with ‘Poetic Injustice 2’.
A collection focused on Dorset and its changing seasons, once again illustrated by her husband Dick.
“I thought that was the end of it but just recently in November last year I suddenly said I want to do another book,” said Joan. “I’d still kept writing but I thought if I don’t do it now then I’m not going to be able to do it anymore. I had got quite a lot of poems already to go and I wrote several more to go into the book.
“We decided to have a change of title this time and as it is a complete mixed bag I called it a potpourri of poems more easy to read verse and the inspiration behind some of it because some of them were inspired by different local people.”
The latest collection features poems inspired by her local Bradpole Post Office, her two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels alongside her winning entry in the Dorset WI Poetry competition.
Despite her popularity Joan doesn’t like the term “poetry” and takes great pride in the fact that her poems are to the point and rhyme in perfect verse.
She said: “I have found now that a lot of people say I love your poems because they all tell a little story, or they’re jokey, we can understand what it is your saying.
“Modern poets don’t like things that rhyme and to be honest with a lot of them the message is not immediately apparent to a lot of the ordinary hoi polloi.
“There is a place for modern art, music and poetry but hopefully there is still a place for conventional poetry. They do all rhyme and I am not ashamed of that because I think people like them. The fact that the books sell is an indication in themselves that they are not bad.”
Joan insists that at 75 this will be her last book but she doesn’t intend to give up her readings anytime soon.
“I’m always happy to give talks and readings,” she said. “I tend to start of by telling people how I came to write in the first place and then intersperse it with poems. Some people bring along poems and have a go at writing them themselves and it makes for a really nice evening.
“I think once I’ve written the poem it’s the reading which I enjoy most.”
Joan doesn’t like to take all the credit for her success and insists that her husband gets credit for his input.
“I feel sorry for my husband Dick along with my daughter and my sister. They get an earful and if they like my poems and they laugh in the right place I’m happy,” she said.
“My husband will tell you that usually in the middle of the night I’ll wake up with a good line and I’ll scribble it down. I must say though that I am not alone, there are lots of people that write poems but I’m the only one who is conceited enough to think that other people would want to read them and put them in a book.”
A Potpourri of Poems is available from various outlets in Bridport, Bradpole and Beaminster or direct from Joan on 01308 458428 or joan.robins@btinternet.com. Books cost £4.
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