It's World Poetry Day 2022 and it would seem we have a few poets in our area.

Shakespeare, is probably the name which springs to most people's minds when you mention poetry.

But you don';t have to be the Bard to write poetry and in 2022 it would seem it's alive and kicking!

Not many people would think of writing about toads but Smallwood Toad Patrols co-ordinator, Alsager town councillor, Jane Smith, has found fame from the subject she loves.

Jane returned to writing during lockdown after a 20-year hiatus and Sandbach Nub News told here. how here "Toads During Lockdown" was highly commended in an international poetry contest

She was invited to Somerset to give a reading of the poem, printed below, at the Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival.

Jane's poem is below: Toads During Lockdown by Jane Smith Locked down, I missed those March nights,

Rain on the tarmac, mist on the land,

And your slow, slow journeys back to your natal ponds,

Toad minds focused on the job in hand.

Many evenings after sitting through the human news

With its daily body counts and endless flow charts,

I looked out at the shared stars and pictured you crossing safely,

Back to where you were born, no trucks, no cars. Anthropause! It's what I'd wished for you each Spring

No traffic, no tyres crushing toad lives and lust;

But the price we paid was high, so high -

A plague, a plague on all of us.

Though I cried for people's sorrow,

There was a soft green shoot of hope for us yet.

Could we live differently, humbly, more kindly?

Rediscover our species and its seasons, re-set? One night I watched through a window our common moon,

Imagining the lanes alive with your throaty chords,

And heard the radio downstairs,

The Beatles coming up through the floorboards,

Singing your toad message

With a human song:

We just need to get back,

Back to where we once belonged. World Poetry Day highlights the role of poetry in today's world as well as in the survival of ancient languages. Here are a few ideas to put poetry back into your life: • Buy a good poetry book of your taste or download an app,

• Explore the best poetry you feel you would enjoy,

• Read it intensively,

• Share it with friends,

• Give an attempt to write your emotions the way the poet has written,

• Follow the hashtag trends on Social Media: #WPD, #WorldPoetryDay, #PoetryDay.