The theme of the ‘Prisoner in the Tower’ has been on my mind a lot recently – well, ever since Stuart and Sue asked if I would create a three-part poem in the style of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol‘ for one of their forthcoming books.

I’m a big fan of Wilde’s comedic writing, but have to confess that I had never read this, his last book, which is considered to be his masterpiece. Having received a rather lovely edition of it as part of a set of Christmas gifts from my co-directors of the Silent Eye School, I read it, and winced at the depth of understated feeling in the writing, as Wilde himself (and not one of his characters) lives through the execution of a fellow prisoner, and the whole gaol is silenced in passing companionship. I realised that this assignment was deliberate…