Jenny Hockey

People who go out in the rain without coats

with no excuse   no block of butter to buy
or late birthday card to post

wearing only a hoodie and shorts
flip-flops   some holding a child’s hand
to point out things it doesn’t need to see  

this morning one of them walked slowly
past the new houses   skirting the bus shelter
raindrops trapped in a blonde nest of hair   

eyes filled with somewhere else

Jenny Hockey's poems range from the sad to the surreal to the celebratory. She trained as an anthropologist and still takes an oblique view of the ups and downs of everyday lives, her own included. She retired from Sheffield University as Emeritus Professor of Sociology to write and read more poetry. In 2013 she received a New Poets Award from New Writing North and in 2019 launched her debut collection, Going to bed with the moon (Oversteps Books). jennyhockeypoetry.co.uk