Category: poetry

We’ll Meet You There

June 24, 2026

Writing on the hottest day of the year so far, I thought it appropriate to share an image of our collaborative poetry collection We’ll Meet You There (Dialect Press 2026). It is a gorgeous sunshine yellow which signifies the brightest joy and optimism but yellow can also can also signify caution and decay, appropriate for a collection of poetry about the future.

In 2024 I became more and more disillusioned with the trend in eco-poetry for a seemingly endless catalogue of loss and destruction which just seemed to have the effect of creating a state of climate anxiety and paralysis of action. I found other like-minded poets Alice Willitts and Hilary Watson and writers Katherine Stansfield and Laura Baggaley and together we searched for a different approach to the climate and other crises the planet was experiencing. We found Manda Scott’s ‘Thrutopia Masterclass’ and spent 18 months immersed in the study of thrutopia, working our way through topics such as regenerative agriculture and landscape adaptation, regenerative cities and architectural solutions for climate change, economic models and circular economies, community action groups and initiatives and much much more. Thrutopia charts a path between the horror of dystopia and the fantasy of utopia by using practical examples of adaptation and change to get from where we are now, to a future that is possible and achievable. It reinvigorated us and transformed our writing, at last here was something that brought us out of our state of hopelessness and inactivity into a place where we could promote change and encourage others by writing positively. We were sparked into a phase of creativity and inventiveness. We invented repurposed and retrofitted poetic forms to uncover expressions for this new way of looking at the world. We also found joy in our writing and in the collaborative process. We’ll Meet You There is the result and is the first ever collection of thrutopoetry (Alice invented the name for this new genre!) We asked the question ‘what do we need poetry to be in this time of immense and rapid change?” and we hope the collection provides some of the answers. We need to act and we need to act now and we need to spread the word more urgently than we’ve ever done before.

Thank you to Juliette Morton of Dialect Press for having faith in us and publishing this book.

This pamphlet is urgent and restorative – deeply attentive to the world in its precarity and insistent about the possibility of healing.

https://www.dialect.org.uk/bookshop/p/well-meet-you-there-preorder

We have a title and workshop news!

January 3, 2026

In my last post I wrote about the book I have coming out on 20th March with Dialect Press; a collaboration with fellow thrutopian poets Alice Willitts and Hilary Watson. It spent a long time without a name as nothing seemed just right but I’m pleased to say it has finally been christened ‘We’ll Meet You There’ a perfect name for our exploration of a future that is desirable and possible. We are organising a series of readings to launch it and if anyone knows of places that might be interested in hearing us, please let me know.

We are also running a workshop for Dialect called Writing the Future. It’s a three week course, with two live teaching/feedback sessions and an on line study pack to download with lots of additional information and writing prompts. If you are curious about Thrutopia or simply want to find different ways to write about the planet and its future that aren’t stuck in dystopian doom scrolling, come and join us. Make this the year where you change narratives and make a positive difference. https://www.dialect.org.uk/coursesworkshops/writing-the-future

Cafe Writers Competition

February 11, 2023

Poetry Competition

Delighted to have a poem commended in the Cafe Writers Competition.

The poem is called My Body is a Map of all my Journeys and is a meditation on the journeys a body takes over its lifetime and how life events can alter it. It also describes how we perceive our bodies and how we try and alter them. I’ll be reading it and another of my poems at the competition winners event on Monday 13th March at 7.30pm. It’s on Zoom, so contact Cafe Writers for the link. Hope to see some of you there, can’t wait to hear the winning poems!

Seren Poetry Podcast

October 8, 2022

I’m really excited to be one of the poets featured in the first series of Seren Poetry Podcasts. Each one is an interview with the poet and includes them reading their work. I’m in the company of some amazing poets including Kim Moore, Polly Atkin, Rhian Edwards, Eric Ngalle Charles, Christopher Meredith and others. I spent a lovely couple of hours at Wordsworth Grasmere with Chris Gregory from the audio production company Alternative Stories being interviewed. We talked about life and death, what a heart sound like, how poems come to you at the most inconvenient times, the different qualities of rain in the Lake District and of course animals; pigs, sheep, what it’s like to assist in the birth of a calf and how being a vet gives you a unique perspective into the lives of animals. He also asked me about the experience of being a mother and stepmother, we found we had a shared love of folk music and I think morris dancing even made an appearance! There is a preview of me reading one of the poems here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2035359/11391669-preview-five-auscultation-by-ilse-pedler and the whole podcast will be out on Thursday 12th October, just search for The Seren Poetry Podcast in any of the usual podcast apps, Spotify, Google, Apple etc.

The first podcast with Polly Atkin was released on 6th October and is full of interesting information about living with chronic illness, the beauty and the rain in the Lake District ( I think there’s a theme emerging. here) and the life of Dorothy Wordsworth. You can listen to it here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2035359/11442854-polly-atkin-much-with-body

Launch Reading

September 1, 2021

What an exciting evening we had; poems about animals, surgical instruments, being a step mother and morris dancing! Here is the link to the reading, I hope you enjoy. There is a poem about the death of an animal which a friend said should carry a ‘mascara warning’ as it made her cry, so be prepared for that one all you mascara wearers!

Poems from Auscultation

July 7, 2021

Here is a link to a couple of the poems from Auscultation

Roadblock, was Seren’s featured Friday poem at the end of June and is the story of an evening visit to an injured horse. Below that is a video of Miss Freak’s Whelping Forceps, a poem about the design of this specialist instrument and how men and women have different approaches and ultimately

in the feral hours where instinct loosens

itself from shadows, it’s Miss Freaks we reach for

to coax the unborn to crown the light.

https://serenbooks.wordpress.com/2021/06/25/friday-poem-roadblock-by-ilse-pedler/

The launch night for the collection is Tuesday 13th July, it would be lovely to see you there. Tickets are free.

Register on Eventbrite

It’s Here First Collection!

June 19, 2021

My first collection, Auscultation, will be available from Monday 21st June from Seren. https://www.serenbooks.com/productdisplay/auscultation

It’s a collection of poems written over the last 8 or 9 years but I suppose really a record of 30 years experience as a veterinary surgeon, stepmother and mother.

Auscultation means listening and specifically, in medicine, listening to sounds that come from the body’s internal organs. I have spent 30 years listening to animals and their inner sounds but also the concerns of owners and the stories of how animals play a central role in many of their lives. I’ve heard stories of cruelty and horror but also of such love and empathy I have been moved to tears. The consulting room really is a privileged place and the role of a veterinary surgeon can feel like a balance between healer, confessor and counselor at times.

The language of animals; how to restrain, coax and understand them is a skill learnt over a lifetime and I am still learning. I am constantly in awe of animals, their ability to adapt to situations and interpret them, their stubbornness, playfulness and honesty and in the case of horses and farm animals, their sheer bulk and majesty too. There are also poems about euthanasia and ending an animal’s life, the part of the job that all vets dread. These are the animals that wake you in the dark hours and make you question what you do. It’s a sad fact that the veterinary profession has the highest rate of suicide of any of the professions and this is explored in a few of the poems.

Other poems in the book are about my childhood and my experiences of being a stepmother and mother and the rollercoaster ride that parenthood takes you on. Here, listening and being listened to are central themes too, how the voice of a child can be ignored and the damage that can do and how we interpret motherhood according to our own experiences. The last section in the book is about being a step mother, the joy and heartache that brought and how, in fairy stories, stepmothers are always portrayed as the evil ones. These poems are deeply personal and a record from my point of view and of course the situation for all blended families is different and highly nuanced.

There will be a launch reading on Zoom on 13th July. Do get in touch if you’d like to be sent an invitation.

Go Graciously

November 27, 2020

It’s not the mistake you make, it’s how you deal with it that matters

This is a saying I used all the time at work and I found how people reacted to their mistakes was often a good judge of character. I preferred working with people who were open and honest; who, when they realised something had gone wrong, apologised for it and asked how they could do better in the future. rather than people who tried to deny or cover up their errors. It’s not easy when we’re embarrassed or ashamed but our reaction is a measure of who we are.

Recent events across the world involving people of power have shown their true character, even though we may have been pretty sure of it before. This is the poem that came out of events in recent weeks.

The photo? It’s a horse gag. Let us never be gagged.

The Measure of a Man

It’s not surrounding yourself with gimlet- eyed sycophants
reclining on cushions in your own private echo chamber,
it’s pulling out the barbs of critics from your skin,
however hard they sting and seeing their truth;
that is a measure of your humility.

It’s not indulging in the gluttony of the feast
grabbing the tastiest titbits of wealth and supremacy,
it’s in the modesty of taking only what you need
and giving the rest to those without hope or privilege;
that is a measure of your morality.

It’s not the self-delusion of seeing the world
through the eyes of your own class or colour,
it’s having the courage to walk unfamiliar streets
and greeting those you meet openly and with enquiry;
that is a measure of your understanding.

It’s not how you accept the responsibility of power
put on it dazzling crown, wield its weighty sceptre,
it’s how you step down from the throne and pass on
those enticing burdens to waiting hands;
that is a measure of your grace.

Do not go ungraciously
history will remember you for it.

Sidmouth Folk Festival Crowdfunder

June 30, 2020

One of the biggest disappointments of the whole Covid pandemic has been the cancellation of all the summer folk festivals. One of the longest running and best folk festivals in the world is Sidmouth Folk Festival. In the first week of August every year, a little seaside town on the South coast of Britain explodes in a jubilation of traditional song, dance and music. People from all over the world come back year after year to participate in an astounding variety of workshops, concerts, dances and sessions. I am lucky enough to lead the poetry events at the festival with a series of workshops and other events. The festival had already incurred costs this year before it had to be cancelled and they have just launched a crowdfunding event to ensure the viability of the festival next year. There are some amazing rewards, so please check out the site and consider donating. There is also a 1 to 1 poetry mentoring workshop with me and you don’t have to come to the festival to make use of this. It can be done online. More details here

Breaking the Line

May 24, 2020

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What makes a poem a poem? So many things that books have been written in answer to to the question! What is interesting me at the moment is the use of white space on the page. As Glyn Maxwell famously wrote in On Poetry ‘Poets work with two materials, one’s black, one’s white’ and it’s the interaction of the two that not only frames a poem but allows it to breathe. Even more than that, the white space has been likened to a musical score, giving instructions to the eye on how to read and the ear on how to receive.
Line breaks are an integral part of these instructions, the emphasis they bring to the word at the end of the line or the word at the beginning of the next is central to the construction and interpretation of a poem.
Holly Pester used a great example in her article in Poetry News Vol 109:2 Looking at ‘The other plum poem’ by William Carlos Williams

To a Poor Old Woman

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

In four short lines, moving the line breaks has created a pattern of different meanings and emphasis and intensified the sensation within the poem. Wow, powerful things these line breaks!
Here’s one of mine, the title poem from the pamphlet and one where line breaks play a significant part in the reading and meaning of the poem.

The dogs that chase bicycle wheels

stare out of windows,
checking the boundaries

checking the boundaries.

They have territories to protect,

circling

from the backs of sofas

to front doors,

to kitchens,
whole worlds held in their flat eyes.

Postmen breach defences,
dropping offerings
to be bitten, ripped and pissed on.

Straining to a point always
just in front of their noses,
the click

clicking of bicycle wheels

tricking them into the frenzy of a chase
for the white scut of a rabbit.

Unceasingly they scout crowded horizons
for what is not there,

will never be there.

Easter Wish

April 11, 2020

I’m not really one for prayer but it strikes me that in these times when it seems like the whole world has been put on pause, people are still reaching out to each other with words of care or comfort and support is being given in surprising and inventive ways. One phenomenon I’ve noticed is the way that people are signing off emails and messages has changed. It got me thinking and so here is my wish for you.

Valediction in the Time of Covid.

I am no longer yours in faith or sincerity,
I cannot be the granter of wishes
or kisses
in these interrupted days,
I can however issue instructions
in the hope they fall as talismen
Keep well
Stay safe.

Poetry is a beautiful thing

October 7, 2019

We all know that poems can be beautiful things, powerful things. A poem can make you laugh, cry, all the cliches but occasionally poems are presented in a beautiful way too; one of these is in Maria Isakova Bennett’s glorious stitched journals, Coast to Coast to Coast. I was lucky enough to be included in the summer edition and was so excited to open the envelope when my copy came. As you can see, a thing of beauty.

Coast to Coast to Coast

Maria is also a poet in residence at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and is producing a special Aldeburgh edition of the journal. The brief was to spend an hour in a chosen location on a coast or by a river or lakeside and using as inspiration a favourite poem that links sea, coast, river or lakes and/or lines from excerpts of poems that Maria gave;  write your own poem. The place I chose was Stickle tarn in the Lake District, just as the sun was going down one summer evening…

The journal is being launched at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival on November 8th. Aldeburgh is a unique festival, a high quality series of workshops and readings set against a soundscape of the waves breaking on the pebbly Suffolk beach, not to be missed.

More information on Maria and Coast to Coast to Coast and Poetry in Aldeburgh can be found here;

https://www.mariaisakova.com/coast-to-coast-to-coast

https://www.poetryinaldeburgh.org/

Poetry Workshops at Sidmouth Folk Festival

July 18, 2019

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Not long to go now,  the week long folk extravaganza that is Sidmouth Folk Festival is only a couple of weeks away! Music, dance, singing, storytelling and now poetry are all on the programme.  In the elegant and relaxed atmosphere of the Drawing room of the Royal Glen Hotel from 11.30- 1pm Sunday to Thursday, we’ll be using a variety of prompts and devices to stimulate our poetry brains.  No previous writing experience is necessary, the workshops are suitable for novices as well as more experienced writers. They are stand alone but the more you come to, the more fun you’ll have! The subjects for this year’s workshops include ‘poetry of sound and silence’, ‘how to write a ballad’ and ‘poetry games’. If you’ve never experienced ‘Poetry Countdown’ or ‘Poetry what’s in the Bag?’ come along and find out! There’s also a chance to perform in the poetry slot in the Friday Morning Showcase concert.

New for this year is also Sidmouth’s first Poetry Open Mic. It will be held at The Woodlands Hotel on Tuesday 6th August from 5-7pm. Sign up on the door to read for up to four minutes, either your own work or bring along a favourite poem or two you’d like to share. Experienced writers or new poets welcome, or if you don’t want to read, the Woodlands is a perfect place to relax for a couple of hours and just listen to poetry. There will also be a chance to hear me read, I can always guarantee some poems about animals but also watch out for one or two about Morris dancing! I will be joined by a local poet, the amazing Jan Dean, whose work as a Poet-in-Schools has inspired new generations. She also writes ‘Poetry for grown-ups’ and her reading style and unique take on life are guaranteed to have you entertained and enthralled.

Contact me on ilse.pedler@zen.co.uk for more information.

 

Climate Catastrophe: Poets Speak Out

May 28, 2019

What can we do in the face of  the challenges that we are presented with either on a personal or global level but use what skills we have in any way we can?  For this reason and because I believe passionately about the  responsibility we have to care for our environment,  I will be joining fellow poets to read at an evening of poetry in support of the XR and Fridays for Future Movements at the Waterside Cafe in Kendal on Sunday 23rd June 7-9pm. Hosted by Grey  Hen Press it will feature readers from Dove Cottage Poets, The Brewery Poets and others from Cumbria and Beyond. There is a £5 donation on the door and all proceeds will go to the UK Youth Climate Coalition.

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