Poetry in motion: Ian McMillan tweets his dawn walks

The poet looks back over 12 months on Twitter

Ian McMillan records his dawn walks on Twitter (Alamy)

Each morning, I get up early and go for a stroll through my ex-mining village near Barnsley; just before 6am, I walk to the newsagent, then down a long hill and up a steeper hill and back home. It takes me about 40 minutes and I tweet about the stroll as soon as I get in. I’m excited by the idea of creating minimalist poetry about a limited canvas, trying to find something new every day from the same mile and a bit. The moon is a regular presence and so is the word “beautiful”. Here’s my selection of some of the tweets I’ve posted since Christmas Day 2012:

25/12: On my early stroll, by the zebra crossing, one Belisha beacon working, one not, Like the cheapest open-air disco you ever saw.

28/12: On my early stroll I’m battered by the breeze, a skiff on the pavement’s lake. A  bit of old Christmas paper like a gull with holly wings.

30/12: On my early stroll I’m struck by the simple beauty of a No Entry sign. The red circle, the white line. It has the power of art.

5/1/2013: Different ways of looking at the moon: gaze, peer, peep, stare, glance, gawp. Pointing sometimes, like today. It was so beautiful.

8/1: Early stroll. Beautiful sliver of a moon low in the sky. I could almost touch it. I will. I daren’t. I might. Would it feel cold? I daren’t.

Poet Ian McMillan (Rex Features)

21/1: Early snowy stroll. I find myself trudging, so I try to vary it: jazz trudge/hero trudge/tap trudge/thoughtful trudge/satirical trudge/trudge.

16/2: Early stroll. I come across three discarded pens, and an empty pack of headache tablets. A poet’s passed by, I reckon.

23/2:

1/3: Early stroll. Birds fly across the moon,  blossom begins to appear on a tree down the hill. I’m walking through a haiku, it seems.

3/3: Early stroll. I’ve eaten my apple then find another apple on the pavement. Tempted to eat it, so tempted. Barnsley: garden of Eden. Me: Adam.

Alamy

9/3: Early stroll. There’s a door in a skip and I’m tempted to open it, go through, find a mystical and magical land. Somebody stares at me from a bus.

11/3: Early stroll. By the almost-demolished school, a bunch of red fire extinguishers  like chess pieces waiting for a game. Snow speckling them.

14/3: Early stroll. A big piece of gold-coloured wrapping paper, lifted by a breeze, flies towards me like a primitive sculpture of a mythical bird.

23/3: Early snowy stroll. A craving for colour in the white. So, thanks to blue bag in tree, green sparkly hat in front of car, crushed marker pen.

30/3: Early stroll. An empty bus passes and I crouch to look at the moon through its moving windows. The driver slows down, thinks I want to get on.

7/4: Early stroll. A mystery by the demolished school: a small box with HARMONICA  written on it but no harmonica in it. I stand and listen: birds.

14/4: Early stroll. I walk past a door and the smell of toast and the sound of someone whistling and I want to go in and eat and whistle.

15/4: Early stroll. Beautiful visual image of five garage doors in a row, each door a different colour: a green/a blue/a green/a brown/a blue.

21/4: Early stroll. I wish I knew the proper names for clouds, but I don’t. So I’ll call that one George, that one Thinking, that  one Yesterday.

25/4: Early stroll. Meet my brother who looks just like me. Our voices mingle in the morning air. Our breath hangs in sibling sentences.

26/4: Early stroll. I often see that horse in that tiny field but this is the first time I’ve seen that trampoline in the corner. Possibilities.

27/4: Early stroll. That house joined onto the dancing school is To Let. Imagine living there, living near rhythm. Living near jazz and tap.

Alamy

4/5: Early stroll. I stand, as I often do, where the long-demolished football factory was,  to listen for the sound of ghost footballs  being made.

12/5: Early stroll. An abandoned ironing board near the paint shop. Six snails move towards  it. A bread van lurches as it passes: inside,  rolls roll.

16/5: Early stroll. A runner gasps by. The grumpy bloke who never returns my Good Morning returns it grumpily as we walk through fallen blossom.

18/5: Early stroll. Dandelion clocks in verges. Abandoned football on top of a bus shelter, looking like the moon. Clocks/moon: time/space stroll.

26/5: Early stroll. Bright sunshine, and a full moon dawdling over my brother’s allotment, which is bathed in sunlight, moonlight,  lettuce-light.

2/6: Early stroll. Equine excitement on the street: four escaped horses corralled into a  front garden by a passer-by. House owner  still asleep.

3/6: Early stroll. A plane makes a chalk mark across the sky. Passengers look down and  say “there’s @IMcMillan on his stroll. We’re in his tweet”.

4/6: Early stroll. Under a sky the colour of boredom I hold my stomach in as I pass a Slimming World poster and almost tread on a slug.

5/6: Early stroll. Sculptures: the wheelie  bin monoliths, the single stone placed on the low wall, the imperfect pavement circle of spilled pop.

15/6: Early stroll. Muggy, damp. Two snails make their slow way towards two discarded beer cans near the roundabout. Party time  next Tuesday.

6/7: Early stroll. Mist over the valley where the pit was. An empty eggshell on the floor as though the mist has escaped from the egg.

9/7: Early stroll. A fridge-freezer in a garden like the start of a fridgehenge, and a bus full of people in hi-vis jackets like a sun on wheels.

27/7: Early stroll. Dozens of snails climbing Mr Moody’s garden wall. Slow music on a brick piano. Rose petal patterns on the path.

30/7: Early stroll. Someone has placed a hubcap on a low wall; it’s like a grey metal sunrise. I lean to try and align it with the real sunrise.

2/8: Early stroll. I find a single jigsaw piece by the empty houses. Turn it over: a blue sky. The man on the mobility scooter waves.

19/8: Early stroll. A vivid sunrise over the old pit then, unbelievably, a single orange button by the bakery. The sunrise represented.

22/8: Early stroll. Mist over the valley, the  trees poking like broccoli. The man in the  Men at Work sign is still wearing wellies. The moon hides.

24/8: Early stroll accompanied by the nihilistic dance music of a burglar alarm. Three party poppers stuck to the wall of the betting-shop: win!

26/8: Early stroll. The few pink clouds fade, reflecting the pink rose petals scattered  on the pavement. Beside the chip forks. And that biscuit.

30/8: Early stroll. Bright cool morning. As I pass the streetlights they go out and I try to ignore the stone in my shoe which nags like  a memory.

6/9: Early stroll. A few leaves on the floor like scouts for autumn’s wagon train. The temporary traffic lights are at red and I stand very still.

14/9: Early stroll. Couldn’t find my glasses  so the sunrise glowed like a three-bar electric fire and the grumpy bloke shone like a  shaky angel.

15/9: Early stroll under shifting, dramatic skies. A white van trundles by, the passenger holding a map. I see it twice more: lost, wandering.

22/9: Early stroll. The moon hangs in the  sky like an idea I wish I’d had. Two carers  rush to change a flat tyre. Someone waits in a room somewhere.

23/9: Early stroll. Single lights: the security light illuminating the cemetery, the car  with one headlight like a radioactive monocle, a bathroom.

30/9: Early stroll. I eat an apple from my tree under a fingernailclipping moon. The two  grey-haired ladies walk by me laughing. I spit a pip high.

14/10: Early stroll. Morning still as a coat  hanging in a wardrobe. I find a shiny penny beside a red removal van from Cornwall. A man’s cig glows.

15/10: Early stroll. Five minutes later than usual, so I pass different people. The bus shelter is empty. That light is on. That light is off.

19/10: Early stroll. Can you be dazzled by  the moon? This morning I was. A red necklace lies on the path like a jewelled snake. Two  shattered brollies.

22/10: Early stroll. The scaffolding on the pub throws beautiful shadows in the pavement. Raised voices from an upstairs room. A  hedgehog bustles by.

30/10: Early stroll. I wish I could save this morning’s light in a shoebox and release it on a gloomy December afternoon.

1/11: Early stroll. In the heavy mist, a discarded 2p coin gleams like a fallen moon. I pocket it. Hens cluck at me from behind a hedge.

5/11: Early stroll. Rain flecks my glasses and a man in a black coat and black hat passes with a black dog on a lead. Only the lead is visible.

18/11: Early stroll. A light goes off in a bedroom and on in a kitchen, as though light has  fallen downstairs. Loaves are put on the  bakery shelves.

22/11: Early stroll. Perspective and slope make that man as tall as a tree. A red van parked by a white van: wine on wheels.

26/11: Early stroll. The moon is a huge grin in the sky. The dead cat by the Post Office looks oddly peaceful. The paper boy’s head is down, hood up.

28/11: Early stroll. The moon is in and out of the clouds. My old house is empty, but it has new windows. I lift a fallen bin. It clatters.

30/11: Early stroll. A clear sky vivid with stars and an astonishing sliver of almost-orange moon. Two skinny men in tracksuits appear from shadows.

3/12: Early stroll. I’m held by the sight of leaves falling from a tree in the cemetery. The man in the paper shop draws his wife a map.

5/12: Early stroll. Those hedges have been trimmed so the view down that back street  is different. I refuse simile, even when I see a red glove.

6/12: Early stroll. A woman in bright white shoes waits in a darkened bus shelter. A kid goes by on a bike with his hands in his pockets. Puddles.

8/12: Early stroll. A man comes out of his house, looks at the ladders on top of his van as though he’s contemplating climbing them to the moon.

Ian McMillan is a poet, comedian and broadcaster who presents ‘ The Verb’ on Radio 3 ian-mcmillan.co.uk; twitter.com/IMcMillan