Simon Haines

Simon has written six collections of poetry:

Enjoy the dance
This is not a baguette
Quietly Quaking
For the meek
Sea Planes and Seed Trays
It’s Nuts

I’ve always written songs and poems though very few have seen the light of day until now. Lockdown gave me more time to write and more subjects to write about.  Several of my poems have been included on the Poetry Wivenhoe website. Some of these are included in three of the group’s  printed collections: Tales Told By Birds, The Last Hotel and Different Days, Different Desires.  Other poems have been broadcast on BBC Radio Essex.
But the story actually goes further back than this. When I was about 7, I went in for a national poetry competition for primary school children and amazingly won second prize. We had to write an extra verse to Old Mother Hubbard. I was too scared to go to London to collect the award, but I was pretty chuffed, even though the prize was only a book token. Sadly I didn’t keep that extra verse.
I think it was probably at this point that I decided I wanted to be a writer. My parents used to ask me regularly what I wanted to write. My answer was always “I don’t know yet.” But, ever since then, I’ve always been busy writing something: songs, poems, magazine articles, children’s stories and for the last 40 years EFL textbooks.                                                                                                            Simon Haines