Publications

 

 

STOP PRESS

Just Published

Prague Tales

 

This Anthology includes one of my poems, Singing for Karluv, and is an excellent collection for anyone interested in this fascinating city.

 

My poem Free Market Verse is published in the 'Money and Power' issue of Scribespirit

Three of my poems have now been published in the online magazine, Quill & Ink

 

 

Private Histories - A poetry collection (2004)

Poetry collection

 

This book is a milestone for me as my first collection of poems, but it is also something of a milestone in being one of the first published books of the newly launched UKA Press. There are new publishing ventures starting all the time of course, but I believe this one to be rather more special in that it represents a true collaboration between the worlds of traditional publishing and web publishing.

The UKAuthors website provides a marvellous forum for writers to show and discuss their work and through its association with Bluechrome now offers a new opportunity for writers to get into print. I hope that the book world - and in my case the poetry world - will welcome this development and give it the encouragement it deserves.

This collection represents a selection of my work since I started to write poetry ten years ago. It’s a mixture of old and recent, traditional and modern, rhyming and free. All of the poems are a mixture of truth and imagination, but I won’t be divulging which is which.

Here is a review in its entirety (warts and all!) by Patrick Osada:

"Webber is clearly a talented poet. He is able to express a range of emotion & to employ different styles and techniques to engage with his readers. My only criticism is that sometimes he tries too hard.
Take his Drinker's sonnet (a parody of Shakespeare's Sonnet xviii).
" Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" becomes "Shall I compare thee to a brewer's dray?"....and continues in similar vein to the final line of the toast. All skilfully done ( &, I'm sure, people will chuckle), but the overall effect is of someone trying desperately hard to be funny..............We can see the blood, sweat & tears, the wheels of the poem going round.
To be 100% successful with parody, the poem must appear effortless.
Using as his starting place Carol Ann Duffy's collection, The World's Wife (in which Duffy tells the stories of famous men in history from the spouse's point of view), Webber comes up with his addition to the genre, Mrs. Chaucer.
Whereas Shakespeare's Sonnet xviii is so well known that it works against Webber's parody, Duffy's Mrs. Aesop is less familiar, allowing Webber to borrow her form and style, whilst producing a poem that appears engaging and fresh. He also cunningly produces an extrovert "larger than life" Chaucer, the opposite to the timid and tedious Aesop.
..............".Quiet men,
Mrs. Chaucer," he'd say, "tell no tales. Well let me tell you now
that a tale in his hands was hard to believe,
never mind the two he had up his sleeve. Fabulous."
(Mrs. Chaucer).

Humour is frequently used in Webber's poems, often to make serious points.
In Britain from space he remarks that.....A spendthrift nation lights up space-.......................
..................And if you look really carefully
at eleven - twenty GMT
you can just see the pubs closing.........
(Britain from space)

I feel Webber is at his best with his more serious work & that poems like Platonic lot ; Waverley station; He cares, & The last dance speak with the resonance of experience. These poems contain universal truths that should engage with all readers.........For example, Webber's description of waking from a night of passion in First Light :
As you emerge
from two dimensions into three,
my thoughts are cast
to how we'll never be again..........
.....I want back the selfish night,
you made no shadows in the dark. (First light)

I believe John Webber is a poet to watch. Private Histories is a well-crafted first collection."

 

 

A Slow Boat to Moscow - A humorous travelogue (2003)

Russian travel

Contact me to buy a copy

In September 2000 I made my first visit to Russia. On this trip I took a very intriguing river journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The characters I encountered and incidents that took place, both on and off the boat, turned it into such a memorable voyage that I couldn’t help writing it all down and discovering that it made both a funny and sometimes touching story. Descriptions of the places I visited in the two cities - and in the wonderful countryside and towns between them - are interlaced with tales of a love-struck barmaid, the Russian Mafia and a mysterious coffin.

Two years later I returned to Moscow to continue my Russian adventure which I have now added to the first story to give what I hope is an enjoyable personal impression of, and maybe even a little insight into, 21st century Russia and its amazing people and treasures. The book is illustrated with some of the photographs I took on the two journeys.

 

 

     

 

I have also had poems published in the above anthologies; Voices From the Web, published by the UKA Press, and the Bluechrome 2004 and 2005 anthologies.

 

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Copyright Bare Nibs 2004