An Old Plumber, An Ex-Carer, An Amateur Poet, Words From The Heart
Author: ivor20
G'day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I'm an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those personal thoughts, throughout and beyond my life as a Carer.
I've been blogging for over 2 years, and writing poems for 19 years. Of course a lot of my poems are about my favourite subject Carole, but since I've been blogging my writings have become quite varied, humourous, mystical, observational, and even a few monster/horror poems.
Hello, dear readers and followers. I write for Coffee House Writers magazine (USA) fortnightly, and my poem “Climbing the Stairs”is in this week’s edition. To read the poem, please click the link below to visit my Coffee House Writers Magazine article. >>https://coffeehousewriters.com/climbing-the-stairs/
Hello, dear readers and followers. As you may know, I stopped producing my “Tullawalla Booklets” at #31 because that was the house number of our family’s Tullawalla Homestead. However, the booklet format is a superb way for me to catalogue the vast number of poems I produce, and as the saying goes, “I Am Turning Another Page”. Here I have begun a new series of poem booklets, called “Shangri La”, the name of my little Villa, and it is my piece of “earthly paradise, a retreat from the pressures of modern civilization”. I now have “2192” Poems filed in these booklet formats!! (On my bookshelf, I have “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, which contains 1775 poems … when I first started writing poems, I never envisaged that I would produce so many poems)
Click >> HERE, for the link to your FREE: PDF Copy of“Shangri La, Volume 17, River of Dreams.”
“The soul has illusions as the bird has wings.” — Victor Hugo
“One Day,” when I photographed a wedge-tailed eagle gliding across a clear Victorian sky. Its silhouette stirred something ancient — a whisper of myth, a search for meaning. This ‘Telestitch’ poem was written in response to Coffee House Writers’ monthly poetry assignment, and for the Weekly Prompts “One Day” Monthly Challenge. To visit their fabulous site, click >> Here
Eagle(a Telestitch)
The wistful wedge-tailed eagle, Soars toward the mystical Southern Aurora, Searching for the anomaly’s hidden beginning, Hoping to find the missing Holy Grail. All the horizon’s dreams dissolve into the sky’s finale.
On Wednesday evening, I attended the launch of ‘Anomaly Street’, the 2025 Geelong Writers Anthology/Chapbook. Two of my poems appear in the collection, and I was honoured to recite A Malay Kris and A Cracked Brick Wall. The gathering was warm and welcoming, each reading revealing the diversity of voices within Geelong Writers. For me, the highlight was hearing my words resonate aloud among so many fine works. Holding my copy of Anomaly Street, I felt part of a living street of voices, distinct yet harmonising in community.
The poem is composed of comments/anecdotes I posted on some of my fellow WordPress writers’ articles from that time. In stanza order, they are.
Today’s Throwback Friday poem(originally written in July 2023) is drawn from my upcoming book,Time Hears No Sound. It opens Chapter 4, The Universe: Infinity Times Infinity
Misplaced in Space
there is inner space and there is outer space I like to travel in both places life is not race my database is my bookcase
I am yet to embrace the coalface face to face and this human race has misplaced the meaning of grace and lost the paper chase to the corporate greed of cyberspace
tonight, I’m flying down to inner-space aboard my “Itmims” spacecraft to find a redeemable place inside humanities headspace
Yes, it’s all about my new book, Time Hears No Sound. And my wonderful editor, Judy (from Jaymah Press), will be here at my home tomorrow for a meeting to review the proofreading I did of her draft copy of my manuscript. Another part of the correction process in preparing a polished manuscript before we decide to hand it over to the printers.
The image on the right is my Epilogue poem, which I added to the manuscript yesterday
Polishing Takes Time
Tomorrow the pages will breathe again, their margins whispering corrections, their commas waiting for release.
Around the table, time will sit with us, silent but attentive, as Judy’s careful eyes polish the echoes into a voice that endures.
And when the pages rest, their voices hushed in ink, we will listen together to the silence between words— where time hears no sound, yet carries every echo forward.
The title “Until Eyes Hear Sound” can have different meanings depending on your interpretation. It could be a poetic expression, a metaphor for waiting for something to happen, or a state of deep concentration where one is so focused on one’s inner vision that one becomes oblivious to external sounds. Ivor’s poems do not suggest having the answers, but his words encourage you to think about our environment, as he ponders the purpose of our existence in the universe. If you love poetry that challenges, inspires, and moves you, this book is for you.
According to the author
The cover design, by Kerri Costello, reflects my perceptions of the world that surrounds me. When you look closely at the reflection of the Island in the water, with a bit of imagination, the image appears to be of a guitar.
The book is divided into 10 diverse and imaginative chapters, each accompanied by a creative drawing by Kerri. Themes range from nature and existence, to war and peace, to humour, fantasy, and short forms such as haiku and tanka.
Signed copies available. Order directly via email: ivorrs20@gmail.com (PayPal arrangements can be made)
Author bio
Ivor Steven was formerly an industrial chemist, then a plumber, and is now retired. He has numerous poems published in anthologies and online magazines. He has three self-published books: Tullawalla, Perceptions, and Until Eyes Hear Sound. He is an active member of Geelong Writers Inc. (Australia) and an appointed writer for Coffee House Writers magazine (USA).
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 