National Poetry Day - around the blogs

OK, hopefully this post should stay up on top all day. There are now National Poetry Day contributions from:

The Ex-Communicator
Backword Dave (and second, third and fourth contributions as well)
Iain Coleman
Crooked Timber
Normblog
Blood And Treasure
Panchromatica (and another)
A Step At A Time
Will Howells
Sheila A-Stray's Redheaded Ramblings
Christopher Hill
Liberal England
Offensive Mango
Creative Slips
The High Hat
Public Health Press
(make sure to read the comments on these posts as well, as many other people have contributed within them)

And while I remember, here are the links to the NPD posts from last year: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Strangely, even though I was posting poems by Adrian Mitchell that day I missed one of my all-time favourites out, so here it is now instead: Back In The Playground Blues

I dreamed I was back in the playground, I was about four feet high
Yes dreamed I was back in the playground, standing about four feet high
Well the playground was three miles long and the playground was five miles wide

It was broken black tarmac with a high wire fence all around
Broken black dusty tarmac with a high wire fence running all around
And it had a special name to it, they called it The Killing Ground

Got a mother and a father, they're one thousand years away
The rulers of The Killing Ground are coming out to play
Everybody thinking: 'Who they going to play with today?'

Well you get it for being Jewish
And you get it for being black
Get it for being chicken
And you get it for fighting back
You get it for being big and fat
Get it for being small
Oh those who get it get it and get it
For any damn thing at all

Sometimes they take a beetle, tear off its six legs one by one
Beetle on its black back, rocking in the lunchtime sun
But a beetle can't beg for more, a beetle's not half the fun

I heard a deep voice talking, it had that iceberg sound
'It prepares them for Life' - but I have never found
Any place in my life worse than The Killing Ground.

I'll be around updating on and off for most of the rest of the day, so let me know if I've missed you and wou want to be added to the list.