Having written and performed as The Big J in the 1980s, Janine started again in 2014, after a brief interlude of around a quarter of a century.
Froms sonnets to villanelles, limericks to ballads, the occasional rap and plenty of straightforward rants, serious and humorous and sometimes both, here is Janine's verse.
Janine's poems have been published in numerous poetry and other journals and websites, including Algebra of Owls, South Bank Poetry, the Daily Mirror, PUSH, Hour of Writes, Proletarian Poetry, Confluence Medway, Screaming Violets, Poetry24, Solidarity, Stand Up and Spit, Hastings Independent, Freedom, Women’s Fightback, the Morning Star, Rising and TenFootCity; and in anthologies Spies4Life, Poems for Jeremy Corbyn, Justice: Poems for Grenfell Tower.and Ashes to Activists
Submitted by Janine on
Soldier F said he only harmed
protesters who held bombs or arms
Soldier F had truths to hide
The soldier lied
Lord Saville said
none of the dead
had posed a threat
but that did not stop Soldier F
When one-and-twenty soldiers shoot
then why no prospect to prosecute
Soldier L or Soldier M
who killed a lad who crawled from them?
Submitted by Janine on
Janine's words, Squeeze's music, peformance by I, Doris in support for Women's Aid and its work with victims of domestic violence.
Submitted by Janine on
May has a sore throat
See her Noes running the show
And her Ayes dry up
Submitted by Janine on
Teen sneaks out for a late-night flick
eighteen-rated, knows the tricks
Make-up makes you older, see -
facial hair and fake ID
But teenage Ethan -
He sneaks out for a different reason
Teen snuck out to a punk rock gig
armed with safety pins and cigs
Slipped out the back to an all-night rave
Es and whizz and misbehaves
Submitted by Janine on
It's our annual meet
to judge how you've conformed
So please take a seat
- how have you performed?
Your targets aren't SMART
and it's really a shame
That you didn't take part
in our team-building game
Your goals are alright
but you soon come a-cropper
You're quite impolite
to our mystery shopper
Submitted by Janine on
Janine joins an array of other poets in an event to support campaigning against homelessness and to raise money for Crisis.
You will also be able to buy the Poets Versus Homelessness anthology, including some of Janine's poems.
Submitted by Janine on
Roses are red
Violets are blue
If you're a Tory
I'm not snogging you
Submitted by Janine on
She has to pull up
as she's overheating
Her engine sputters
the dashboard's beeping
She's burning up and burning out
worn and way past her best
Struggled to get through
her last annual test
She's found it more arduous
as she gets older
She's ground to a halt
on the hard shoulder
Submitted by Janine on
Ovaries
Out
Plus
Hysterectomy, hopeful
Outcome: odds
Radically reduced
Ensuring
Cancer can't
Touch, take
Obstruct or obliviate
My many more
Years
Submitted by Janine on
The word 'creative'
Is a bloody adjective
Not a feckin noun
