Story and Poem of the Month

Our Story and Poem of the Month for April, very kindly chosen by Drew Gummerson

An honour, as always, and a pleasure, to be the one doing the Picks of the Month. 

 

I’ll be brief. So here we go. 

 

Story. 

 

I like it when people place their continuing stories here on ABCTales and we are blessed this month to have two by two of our outstanding talents. 

 

Jane Hyphen’s Parcel for You continues to impress. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/jane-hyphen/parcel-youpart-23

 

And we have a new series from the endlessly creative Celticman, Sean Happens. I particularly liked this episode. You know when it opens with a trip to see The Poseidon Adventure it’s going to end in disaster. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/sean-happens-7

 

I love reading Turlough’s diaries and continue to do so. They are both full of daily life and also expansive and thoughtful. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/turlough/sort-thing-march-2024-la-finale

 

I’m not usually a fan of ghost stories but a haunted coffee machine really appealed to be. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/maddan/haunted-coffee-machine

 

Ha! What’s not to love. 

 

But my Pick of the Month is Simon Barget’s Brownwall. I’ve long been a fan of Simon’s work but I love particularly how this one builds paragraph by paragraph, more serious and absurd as it goes. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/simon-barget/

 

 

 

Poem. 

 

A great array of talent here. 

 

And we’ve all been here. Haven’t we? On Lenchenelf’s Tour Bus.

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/lenchenelf/tour-bus

 

Another journey, of sorts, but this a haunting and painful one, beautifully done in hoalarg1’s Beachcomber. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/hoalarg1/beachcomber

 

And if it’s recognition we’re talking about then we all know the kind of person described in jupitermoon’s biting powerful striking poem, A Dumbness of Mallets. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/jupitermoon/dumbness-mallets

 

And in opposition to that is a poem I just want to put my arms around and hug. Mistakennagic’s Walrussey is lovely. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/mistakenmagic/walrussey

 

But my Poem of the Month goes to onemorething. There’s no doubt about that. Its Doubt. 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/onemorething/doubt

 

And info about Rachel’s new book is here - https://www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering