The Sunday Challenge ~ Featuring Scriptor Senex

We recently had an incident, here on Real Toads, regarding the rightful use of images on blogs, and it saddened me to see so many of us scrambling around to "clean up" our sites for fear of reprisal. However, something very good has arisen from that occasion with so many of our members and visitors generously offering their pictures for our use, that I am heartened, once again, by the positive energy of our Imaginary Garden.

One of the first visitors to generously offer his work for our poetic inspiration is out Featured Photographer today, but I shall hand over to him for a personal introduction.

Portrait of the Artist

My name is John Edwards but I write as Scriptor Senex (Latin for Old Writer) and have been blogging since 2005; about my garden, about holidays and from 2007 a general mixed bag of postings. I’m a retired local government executive now studying how to survive a neurological disorder that gives me various problems but, hopefully, a whole new outlook on life and an increased sense of humour and perspective. 

I’ve lived most of my life around Liverpool but have toured the UK with a camera since the early 1960s. I’m proud of my home city, its amazing architecture and its contribution to music and culture over the years. During my life I’ve had two spells of poetry writing. The first was in the 60s and 70s, very much inspired by the Liverpool Poets - Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten - and by being in love a few times!

Liverpool Sky

© John Edwards

I have two daughters and a son, all now grown up, and over the years they have been the subject of many thousands of my photos. But my wife and I also had a son, David, who died in infancy. His death inspired a spell of constant writing – both poetry and prose - as a way of attempting to combat my grief. Appropriately his brief life resulted in probably my shortest ever poem, David Was, which was published in an anthology.

© John Edwards

David Was
                 by Scriptor Senex


David Was
David Is
And David always Will Be
But, dear Lord,
Whatever happened to
What David Might Have Been?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


John has generously offered these beautiful photos for our poetic inspiration. If you add an image to your post, please acknowledge the name of the artist.

Family History

© John Edwards

Family history has always fascinated me and my great uncle traced one of our family lines back to the English yeomanry of the 1400s. I am a terrible hoarder of anything that I think future generations may find of interest and I like to excuse it on the grounds that one of my descendants may also inherit the family history gene.

Small Copper

© John Edwards

Of all the animals and plants I have ever come across the butterflies have remained my favourites since I first got interested in them in my teens. Flying flowers – what more could one want on a summer’s day?

In Their Sixties
© John Edwards

My parents began fell walking in England’s Lake District in the 1920s and continued doing so into their sixties. I began at the age of ten but gave up in my forties and my walking is nowadays restricted to gentle strolls. But being out in the countryside and enjoying nature remains my principal love. Few things please me more or give me more inspiration than being alone in a wood listening to the birds calling, insects humming and those little rustles suggestive of small mammals hurrying about their business.

© John Edwards

Please visit John's blogsites to enjoy more of his writing and photography but bear in mind that for this challenge, we are to make use only of the photos displayed on Real Toads:

Rambles From My Chair

Scriptor's Postcrossing

The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the creative process, so please do not link up old work which kind of fits the image.  This is in the spirit of our Real Toads project to create opportunities for poets to be newly inspired. Management reserves the right to remove unrelated links but invites you to share a poem of your choice on Open Link Monday.