A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the poet Dorothea Smartt asking if I’d like to read at the Life Stories Cafe at Woolfson & Tay, a capacious independent bookshop in the heart of Bermondsey. Life Stories is a novel idea, a storytelling event, based on Pecha Kucha, an adapted Japanese presentation form, based on 20 images 20 seconds each.

I didn't know quite how I was going to approach the presentation until I saw this flyer on a friend's noticeboard.

As the theme was RECYCLE I jumped at it, even though I was mad busy and the deadline was short. Some of the images have appeared on Open Notebooks before, but that seemed to be part of the spirit of things. It mixes my poetry and photographs, which as regular readers will know, is an integral part of my process.  Coincidentally, writing a Pecha Kucha (as a straight poem, no images)  was one of the poem a day prompts for this month’s 30/30, which, being the superstitious beast that I am, I took as a serendipitous sign.

How To Build Your Own Gated Community

I’m not going to include the whole presentation here, partly because some of the photos have been seen on the blog before, and also because there were some ‘out takes’ I loved. I was struck by this elegant recycling by the people up the road.

Just when you thought the luxury brand was dead in the water...

I’ve been writing about death and the concept of spiritual ‘recycling’ for a couple of years now.

I wonder if the reason we need to buy things is because we're afraid of death?

I am very ambivalent towards Twitter, but I do like it as a way to get quick links to news. But it’s also a disheartening testament to the extent of our distraction that topics such as THIS are overlooked while people yak on about super-injunctions.

We're facing a 95% marine species extinction in one human generation. The sea is one of our most efficient recyclers, along with our trees and forests.

It can feel daunting, knowing that we are living in such catastrophic times. Yes, we do like our apocalyptic narratives, but environmental devastation is a reality; all we can do is try to minimise the extent of it do what we can to pull us back from the brink. But, as the presentation concluded, I don’t care whether it’s futile, I have to know that I tried. I do my little things: shop local, eat organic, write my poems and work on loving myself so I don’t have to buy stuff to do it for me.

Mandela reminds me of what it can take to make change happen and why it's so powerful to remember that we can.

I’m planning to recycle this pecha kucha live at an event in the autumn, so look out for it. Meanwhile, I need to get on with a bit of actual recycling…

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