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The Watchers by Joseph Coelho

This is a poem that features in my poetry collection Overheard In A Tower Block, illustrated by Kate Milner. The poem is inspired by the fear I had as a child of three statues that I could see from the balcony of my tower Block in Roehampton. My friends and I called the statues ‘the three witches’, and we would never go near them. My fear of the statues reminded me of a poem by Walter De La Mare called The Listeners. The Listeners is one of my favourite poems, it’s very creepy, you can read it here…

The Listeners by Walter De La Mare

I was inspired to create my own creepy poem inspired by my fear of the statues and my love for The Listeners poem – it seemed fitting that The Watchers were named such and so I made ‘sight’ a focus in my poem where as ‘listening’ is a focus in The Listeners.

I now know that the statues are a work of art called The Watchers By Lynn Chadwick and I no longer find them scary – I actually quite like them and have a photo of them hung up in my study. In Overheard In A Tower Block Kate Milner has drawn just two of the statues and there’s good reason, in 2006 one of the statues was stolen, you can read all about it here…

Second Bronze Sculpture Stolen

I hope you enjoy the poem and maybe it will inspire you to write your own  poem inspired by a statue.