Poetry> Sara without an H collections: Limericks > Poems > Fragments Of Hell > Peanu(t)s > Pennies From Heaven > Major Arcana > Athena > Pearly Queen

Sara without an H

The poetry I wrote between 2013 and 2017 is organised chronologically into collections: a few limericks, some longer poems, a mini-epic poem, and 50 sonnets written in sets.

spoken word writing & performance

I was first inspired to put my thoughts into rhymes by the death of Thatcher on 8 April 2013, and wrote the Quiet Riot Limericks over the days that followed to remind myself what an excremental hag she was while the mainstream media were eulogising her. I posted the limericks on Facebook and didn’t think any more about them until October of that year when I had been chatting to a woman at a gig and she suggested I might like a Spoken Word night in Dalston. 

So I turned up at Spoken Word London on a chilly October night with my limericks and gave my name to the guy on the door as I always do to people I don’t know: “Sara, without an H,” and so that was precisely what he wrote on his list and it’s what he introduced me as. Not my intention at all but the name stuck.

I didn’t start taking my writing seriously until February 2014 when I wrote Warm Hands Cold Heart. That poem fell out of my head in an hour, except for a crucial word in the last line. I stared at it for another hour and was about to give up when the central heating came on and the gas boiler made that whump noise, and I thought: ignite. And I realised the right word for the poem was reignites and I was SO HAPPY. If something makes you that happy then you definitely need to keep doing it. 

I wrote The Juggler in May of 2014 which is a very different kind of poem. This was the first time I used a fictional character (Pierrot the clown) to tell a contemporary story, and also the first time I deliberately drew in a mashup of cultural references. Allegorical verses which reference song lyrics and works of stage and screen became the style my poetry fell into without me really intending it, and starting with Form A Queue in September 2014 I went on a six month writing spree. 

My first set of sonnets were written during November, a friend on Facebook called them Fragments Of Hell. I wrote Lamé the same month and in December came Peanu(t)s, a mini-epic poem in eight parts. In January 2015 I wrote The Alibi and Attention Seeker, in February I wrote a second set of sonnets called Pennies From Heaven and the poem Consider It Brought, then in March I wrote Genie In A Jam Jar.

By this time I had achieved the only real objective I ever had from participating in the Spoken Word scene which was to overcome my fear of performing. I went from complete terror onstage to feeling comfortable with putting together a fifteen-minute set for a feature slot or rattling off a few sonnets in five minutes at open mic. I learned how to command an audience and make them obey me, and it occurred to me that this wasn’t a power I ever wanted to have.

I wrote the Major Arcana Sonnets in August and September 2015, and the Athena Sonnets in March 2016 by which time I had wound down my Spoken Word performing, and I moved out of London soon after. 

In January 2017 I wrote the Pearly Queen Sonnets which I include here as a kind of postscript to the Sara without an H period, plus they relate back to the visual art I was making in 2012 (which I will post on this website when I get round to it).

After that I got distracted by adulting. I started my Bachelor of Arts Degree in 2020 and didn’t write rhymes again until I started my Masters Degree in 2023.

Poetry> Sara without an H collections: Limericks > Poems > Fragments Of Hell > Peanu(t)s > Pennies From Heaven > Major Arcana > Athena > Pearly Queen