Joshua Van Leader - Inspire to Inspire - Looking for Sticks
Date: Wednesday 3rd September 2025
Time: 18:00 to 20:00
Location: Moda New York Square Commercial Space, Quarry Hill, Leeds LS2 7BT
Accessibility: The event is fully accessible for individuals with mobility needs, taking place on the ground floor of the Moda New York Square Commercial Space in Leeds.
Who is it for?
This event is for anyone interested in poetry.
Why attend?
Attendees will benefit by connecting with other poetry lovers, artists and other creatives.
Event details:
Rob has a book of poems and he's going to read some of them to you, in the hope that you'll give him some of that validation he's craved all his life. What poems? Well. When he turned 52, Rob set himself the task of writing 52 poems, one a week, to reflect on life so far.
Perhaps predictably, some of them ended up being about memory and age and the distance between childhood and now. But there's also stuff in there about other things: dinosaurs, romance, how hard it is to be a poet, that sort of thing. Don't worry, he won't read all 52. But he'll probably do the one about the sad skellington.
About Looking For Sticks: 52 Poems for 52 Weeks
When Rob turned 52 he had an amazing idea. He would write 52 poems: one a week, every week, for a year. People would be amazed, and call him a genius, and maybe bring him biscuits. They’d say things like, “How sensitive!” and “Oh, the maturity of the themes!”
Well, here they are, 52 poems. Except there’s 53 because he got confused about the numbering. And the themes aren’t quite as mature as he was hoping.
There’s one about how great it is to find a good stick. There’s an alien invasion defeated by sarcasm. A skeleton who wants to cry. A scary old English teacher. Some sad robots. And one which features a dinosaur, a banana and a Twix.
There’s stuff about love, obviously. And loss, and joy, and music, and childhood. A few about how hard it is to be a poet, despite all the evidence to the contrary. A sad one about a dog. You get the idea.
It turns out that being 52 isn’t the same as being a grown up. We’re basically children, trying to make sense of overwhelming things through daft stories and rhymes. Here are 52 poems to prove it.
