Video Poems
Click on any title below to watch a video performance:

* Macduff
* Osric
* Citizen (Julius Caesar)
* Clown (Antony & Cleopatra)
* After the Play (Peter Quince)
* A Refusal to Mourn the Death
of a Child
* Through a Glass Darkly


3 Copyright Free Christmas Sonnets

Through a Glass Darkly:
this triptych of Nativity sonnets can be performed, broadcast or printed by anyone without breach of copyright. The text of these 3 sonnets can be found here. All other poems on this site and in In Small Measure remain the copyright of Christopher Whitby. Permission to print, perform, broadcast or otherwise use any of them can be obtained by emailing info@openpoetry.org.uk.

Christopher Whitby biography

Following the publication of In Small Measure (May 2011 – see Open Poetry at www.openpoetry.org.uk), this site has changed. Rather than a broad selection of sonnets and other poems, one of 8 poems will be randomly selected for display each time this page is loaded. Over time, the stock of 8 poems used in this selection will also be changed.

Much of my poetry is intended for oral delivery and acting, as well as for reading and some video performances are available by clicking on the links in the right-hand column.


After the Play (Peter Quince Remembers)

Unforgettable — our fifteen minutes
of fame. Although I would not want to see
those days come back — not them. It was as if
the rhythm of our lives had somehow
skipped a beat and we were made to dance
to someone else's tune. You don't believe?
That's your bad luck. Unsettling things they are,
that mar more than they mend, God save us all.

We were not called again, but then so what?
We just went back to what we did before —
that's life. It might have changed, but it did not.
It's what it is and only fools want more.
The magic died afore we realised,
and yet — for one brief moment — we were prized.