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March 2025
HP Poet: Mike Adam
Age: 66
Country: UK


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Mike. Please tell us about your background?

Mike Adam: "Slum east London, dysfunctional violent childhood, playing on bombsites. School, dungeons and kidnappings, sad little boy. Love of dogs and plants and rocks. School: Beckett Shopenhauer, work, college, work university, 1st love lost, travel Asia beaches and mountains, monasteries, monks, Bhodidharma. Work, work, work, Lady J (published collection), retirement, happy at last."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Mike Adam: "Began writing 10 years old, HP about ten years."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Mike Adam: "Poems gestate and arrive unbidden, laid like turtle eggs, a little hole, sand flicked and forgotten."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Mike Adam: "From 1,000 posts perhaps start with the latest few. I call them "mercifully short," easy to read but, given time, you may unpack a great deal."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Mike Adam:
"Ryokan:
Why ask who has Satori, who has not?
What need have I for that dust, fame and gain

Montale:
Life that seemed vast
Is briefer than your handkerchief"


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Mike Adam: "Amidst the first suicidal mass extinction in history I am grateful to read new poetry and garner hope from young poets still expressing themselves in beautiful combinations of words so thank you all for that...

Who am I?
I don't know"


Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much Mike, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”

Mike Adam: "With gratitude, Mike."




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Mike a little bit better. We certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #26 in April!

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It tells a story,
the sadness in her eyes,
are words you don't hear,

i can't say i like the taste
especially—
it’s quite bitter
but you (i) much rather prefer
there’s nothing bitter about you

a nespresso with caramel—
no, i don’t see
the resemblance
(sticky, sugar, honey)
(stay, the taste—caramel)
i must be broken
but not you (you) are heavenly

(Oh—the door—hush)

the taste (you —sweet)—
caramel