An early poem, dating from about 1982, is a diatribe against tourists, in the form of a sonnet.
Another poem about tourists takes its rhythm from Rudyard Kipling's A Smuggler's Song (1906), with its refrain Five and twenty ponies / trotting through the dark.
Snowfall is rare in Cornwall, occurring about once every five years. Kowaz Ergh was inspired by a snowstorm in about 1985; being light-hearted, it uses rhyming couplets.
In the late 1980s, the Institute of Marine Studies in Plymouth, where I worked, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, with a view of developing joint courses. I was on the working-group, and visited Dartmouth several times, on my Honda 90 motor-cycle. Travelling through Devon felt like being in a foreign country, and caused me to write the poem Abersethik. The word sethik is a translation of the English word dart; the element Dart- in the place-name is not really English, but contains Proto-Brythonic *daru- 'oak'.
In 1997, Tim Saunders invited me to Cardiff to attend the count for the Welsh Assembly, which was narrowly won by the "yes" campaign. I felt that Wales had leapt upwards, and that Cornwall had been left behind. This inspired two poems: Azwonnvoz and Digresennans. The latter is a dialogue in five S8 stanzas (i.e. a rhyming scheme of ABABCDDC, as one finds in Middle Cornish).
Tony Snell contributed articles to An Gannas about world affairs, and in doing so made up a number of new words. In 1998 he coined the word omfolsadow for 'fissile'. I soon worked this into the doggerel verse Omfolzadow.
The poem Euth concerns impending and increasing terror, but needs completion.
The subject for the Gorsedh's poetry competition in 1999 was Kosk Lemmyn, Kuv-Kolonn. I submitted an entry, but heard nothing about it. I suspect that my interpretation of the subject was shocking and totally unexpected by the judges. I tackled a topic which I would normally never touch, but about which we were being so bombarded in the news (and still are), that I needed to write about it, to get it out of my system. The result was the most powerful poem I have written in any language, so much so that I was hesitant to include it in the canon.
I was inspired to write the poem Niwlvog after seeing a news report about indiscriminate logging in south-east Asia. All of the lines are short; all of the lines rhyme.
Having business at a Cornish port, I was pleased to find that the harbour-master was a former student of mine. I composed the sonnet Mester an Porth as a result of my visit.
The Cornish motto "One and all" is at odds with the tendency for Cornish groups to splinter into factions. The history of Methodism is an example. More recently, there has been strife between supporters of various forms of Revived Cornish. In the poem "Noze looan", I examine the shock felt by those who have learned one form of Cornish dancing when confronted with another form. This poem is notable for the use of using the same rhymes in all four lines in each stanza.
In 2004, I visited the industrial heritage museum Pwll Mawr in Blaenavon in Wales. Here visitors may descend into what was once a coal-mine, and learn about the history of coal-mining in the area. I was inspired to compose the poem Omdennans den-bal kembrek.
The poem An velin goth was written in 2006, partly to try out cynghanedd in Cornish. The first stanza consists of 10 lines entirely in cynghanedd. This poem won a prize in the Gorsedh competition.
Tim Saunders has popularized the englyn as a verse-form to be used in Cornish. Here are some englyns which I wrote in about 2007.
Here is a poem written for a friend's fortieth birthday, with versions in Cornish and English.
Another poem which I wrote for the Gorsedh competition, in 2008, was Gwenton, in which I deal with climatic change. Having had to teach climatology, I was familiar with this serious problem much earlier than the general public.
While spending the Christmas holidays in Brittany in 2013, heavy snow fell, and I caught the flu. The imagery of hot and cold was captured in the poem Ergh ha flu.
(others to be uploaded)
In September 2025, I attended a performance of Arlodhes a Shalott, translated by Elizabeth Ellis from Tennyson's poem. I was so impressed by this that I translated Keats' ballad La Belle Dame sans Merci.