National Poetry Day: Shedworking poem

Here is Where Earwigs Dare by the marvellous Matt Harvey, arguably still the finest poem ever written about shedworking:

A silver trail across the monitor;
Fresh mouse-droppings beneath the swivel-chair;
The view obscured by rogue japonica.
Released into the wild, where earwigs dare -

You first went freelance - and then gently feral.
You worked from home - and then wandered out again,
Roughed it with spider, ant, shrew, blackbird, squirrel
In your own realm, your micro-vatican.

No name conveys exactly what it is -
Chalet? Gazebo? You were not misled
By studios, snugs, garden offices,
Workshops or outhouses. A shed's a shed -

And proud of it. You wouldn't want to hide it -
Wifi-enable rain-proof wooden box.
A box to sit in while you think outside it -
Self-rattling cage, den, poop-deck, paradox,

Hutch with home-rule, cramped cubicle of freedom,
Laboratory, thought-palace, bodger's bower,
Plot both to sow seeds and to go to seed in,
Cobwebbed, Cuprinol-scented, Seat of Power.

Matt's excellent collection The Hole in the Sum of my Parts is published by the Poetry Trust, nicely illustrated by David Hughes, and I would urge all readers to snap up a copy now. You can buy direct from Matt's site shop here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday posts are sponsored by Cabin Master: garden offices and studios to fit any size garden. Top quality contemporary or traditional buildings.