LOCAL POET
Penny Parker This local lass kept us entertained during these troubled times with her beautiful poetry. Introducing, the lovely Penny Parker... I’ve never really excelled at anything, I’m just your normal average person. I’m a single mum with two lovely grown up daughters. I have a part-time job and I volunteer mainly for guide dogs as a puppy raiser and fundraiser, but I’m happy to help anywhere that needs it really. I’ve always loved to write though and mostly when I see or hear something that touches my heart or makes me laugh, my brain starts working out words that rhyme. Sometimes my brain takes over and wants to rhyme way too much! There is always a notepad by my chair or next to the bed. There’s even one in the car, because I’m never sure when I’m going to need to write. I’m a definite rhyme freak as far as poetry goes, I know it doesn’t have to but to me it’s not poetry if it doesn’t. I always dreamt of writing a book of poems and sent many off to magazines. I even wrote a series of stories about fire engines that were all in verse but after plenty of rejection letters I gave up and only wrote a few for friends or family. Then because being a puppy raiser you go through such a torrent of emotions I began to write again, about the antics of puppies, about saying goodbye and so much more. I began posting them 22
The Felixstowe Magazine - 2021
on social media and they became so popular I had to set up a group to post them in, so that people could always find them. I suddenly started to get requests from guide dog owners and other puppy walkers who wanted poems about their dogs past and present. I got requests for poems about birthdays and about people who had passed on, to be read at funerals and I even wrote a best man’s speech for someone too! More and more people asked if I would put them in a book that they could buy, and there was that dream again, but publishing was expensive and as I wanted the proceeds to go to guide dogs, it was proving difficult. That’s when a friend said he could get it sorted out, designed and ready for press if I could get the funding. Thanks to two local firms “Goldstar” and “Prologic” I got the sponsorship and my first book went to print, quickly followed by book two. What followed was a whirlwind of emotion, excitement to see my dream realised, sadness that my Dad wouldn’t see it and many hectic hours of packaging, labelling and posting. My books have travelled the world, the poems in them have been read in schools, youth groups and homes. It’s an amazing feeling knowing that all those words running riot in my head are actually being read by so many. Book three came out shortly after and all are based around dogs, obviously, and the sale of them has named three guide dogs so far, another massive achievement. The recent pandemic of course meant the words again were spinning, trying to put smiles back on people’s faces but keep
