Tom's treasures of fiction, poetry, literature and more...

For today's blog post, I am returning to a loved novel of mine... This is Jackie Kay's only novel Trumpet  (1998). I recently got to thinking about the novel and how relevant it is to today. I also was reminded of how important things and more importantly people are. Taking the novel as an example, look at the lengths that people will go to for love. This love made a couple, fractured relationships with others and shattered what everyone thought they knew. There is one moment which stands out for me: it is when Joss and Millie, his wife both find their clothes swapped. It resents with me to this day because clothing is something with a rigidity in gender. Society has labelled a lot of clothes for either men or women. Look at shops; they have a 'men's section', a 'women's section' and a 'children's section'. But this does not mean that people have to stick in the section for them of course. Also, note how nothing has adapted for non-binary peo...

As someone who is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I wanted to share a poem I once wrote about my two favourite colours. It is a part of me and who I am. This is my poem... Favouritism: My two favourite colours are lilac and dark blue. Don't ask why my favourite two each of those hues. I don't know myself how I came to choose a mysterious shade and a calming one too. To be honest, I haven't really a clue, though I guess there was a sudden love that grew and grew. But please don't think this is something new. My love for lilac's been here some few years now, only a few. While I have had a lot longer passion for the shade of dark blue. I have tops, jackets, shackets and even shoes in my two favourite colours that I find so 'ooh'! That is my poem on my two favourite colours! Something different for you all today... Until next time, Thomas (they/them).

Hello everyone. Today I am reviewing  The Adoption Papers  (1991) by Jackie Kay. This book is in two parts: the extended poem 'The Adoption Papers' and  the collection 'Severe Gale 8'.  When I started reading this I was glad that all three people involved in the first part - the daughter, the birth mother and the adoptive mother were distinguishable with their clear distinctions made typographically. The use of three different fonts throughout the whole thing to identify the three different voices was a excellent idea. Without, the sequence would have been confusing when reading it. Speaking of these three voices, they each had their own tone. The daughter seems to be rebellious and tough, not letting racism put her down. Being with white guardians is not a problem for her as she accepts it. Other people though seem to find this an issue obviously. I love that racism is something that we see present in The Adoption Papers  because it is important to highlight su...

Hello everyone! Tomorrow is Thursday the 7th of May and voting day here in the UK. But you might be thinking 'who do I vote?' You might even be thinking 'why should I vote?' Maybe you do not think any political party will do what you and they only care about themselves. The thing that different political parties believe in different things and some of these things might be things you do not want As someone who is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I would never align myself with a political party who wants to remove the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community or discriminate against them. The same applies to coming for women's rights as I am proud feminist too. Again, I would not want a party with power if they were racist or xenophobic. That being said, if I want people like that to not get into power then one of my best chances to avoid that is vote against that and choose the political parties that will support and believe in the things that I support and believe...

Hello all. Here I am on this wonderful bank holiday Monday in May. Now I am going to be celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community all month long. But you might be asking yourself what LGBTQIA+ actually stands for? Or maybe you are unfamiliar with some parts of the acronym? It is a good job that I am here! This is what each part of the acronym means... L: The 'L' refers to Lesbian. This is often someone identifying a woman who has attraction to other women, namely only women. However, some non-binary may choose to identify with this label and that is valid. For some non-binary people they might feel more feminine in their own gender identity. They may also consider their relationship as lesbian. It is not up to anyone to judge them on how they choose to label themselves. The reason the 'L' comes first in the acronym is because during the AIDs pandemic of the 1980s, it was lesbian women caring for gay men who were going through an extremely tough time. G: The 'G' as I br...

Welcome to May everyone. As a new month arrives, I have a new author of the month. I also have a new theme of the month. Now next month is Pride month where the LGBTQIA+ community come together more than ever. I do believe pride and solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ is something for all year round. Anyway, because of this the theme of the month for May and June is LGBTQIA+. With that as the theme, I decided to pick an author who is openly a lesbian and wrote a novel about a trans character. That author is Jackie Kay and the novel is her only novel, Trumpet  (1988). I am looking forwards to reading more Jackie Kay this month and highlighting the significance in inclusivity and why the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be thought of all year round, not just in June. Further to this, I going to end my blog posts with my pronouns as well because I do it for emails the same as others. I just thought it made sense. It never hurt anyone... Here is to May everyone! Until next time, Thomas (They/th...