Life and Hippos is a collection of poems.

It started with a poem called Harry the Hippo which I began writing in my head to keep myself awake driving to work. I never finished the original and could only remember the first couple of verses when I came back to it a year or two later, so it could all have been different.

Harry proved popular with the kids, but I was encouraged by the reaction from others as well. So I wrote some other fun poems, but also started to experiment with more reflective pieces and different forms.

I found the process very rewarding. Looking for ways to express thoughts and feelings on paper can be an interesting personal journey and certainly provided me with an invaluable outlet during some difficult times.

The poems are generally hopeful, about learning from our experiences, good or bad, and moving on to better things. Even the ones written for fun generally have an underlying message - although the one about the slug was definitely just about arriving at the punchline!

I hope you will find them entertaining and sometimes thought provoking.