my delayed reactions

poetry snapshots revisited: mavis gulliver

2012-02-13T10:49:00.000Z

The Postman’s Washing Line

When I think of Eigg

it's not the bulk of the Sgurr

or Rum's Coolin's

dominating the western horizon;

but the scent of primroses,

the constant willow warblers' song

and, on the dune edge,

strung between two driftwood poles,

a chorus line of socks

dancing

to the blue Atlantic.

Mavis Gulliver is based on the Isle of Islay in Scotland's Hebrides. Her poetry centres around landscape, islands and the varied aspects of the natural world.

Her poems have appeared in numerous poetry magazines including Iota, Envoi and Poetry Scotland; as well as in Grey Hen anthologies; and the 2011 Polygon anthology 'These Islands, We Sing'.

bright scarf poetry night, february 2012

2012-02-06T17:36:00.000Z

Bright Scarf
Richmond's Poetry Night
Thursday, 16th February
8.00 pm
Waterman's Arms
Water Lane
Richmond

Nearest tube: Richmond
Opposite Curzon Theatre (now the PictureHouse)

Tim Cumming
&
Peter Pegnall

Bring two of your own poems and a classic, if you wish
Price: £4 to include buffet

speaker's corner, wednesday 8th february 2012

2012-02-04T11:53:00.001Z

The Speakers' Corner, York

Open mic for poetry, storytelling and spoken word performance

with special guests

Second Wednesday of every month, upstairs at the Yorkshire Terrier, Stonegate, YO1 8AS

Doors open 7.30 for an 8 pm start

Admission still just £1. Open mic slots available on the night; sign up before 8 pm to be sure of a turn!

Our 8th February guest feature comes to us courtesy of Poems, Prose and Pints, the fantastic open mic on the third Wednesday of every month at the Tap & Spile in Harrogate, and features two of its leading lights - Jem Henderson and Nicola Everill.

Jem Henderson is studying an MA Creative Writing at York St. John University. She is the editor of Indigo Rising UK and she has previously been published in Beautiful Scruffiness and Down in the Dirt, The Night Light and other publications online. She has read at Poems, Prose and Pints and is currently working on a plethora of ideas, and hoping to start a PhD in Japanese and English Literature. You can read more about Jem and her work here.

Nicola Everill is 36 and still not sure what she wants to do. An unfinished Civil Engineering degree, several mostly now lapsed qualifications as an Outdoor Pursuits instructor from what she considers amongst the happiest of her times, work in forestry, landscape gardening, karate, and her proudest achievement was establishing an outreach Mind centre in Ripon, she is currently training in holistic therapies and hopes her mind and body will allow her to see this dream through. Painting and writing have always been favourite activities as far back as she can remember. A discussion one day in the Creative Writing group at Harrogate Mind led to Harrogate's Poems, Prose & Pints; Nicola organises the night and occasionally reads, which in time led to this invitation to read at Speakers Corner. Nicola has a 100% success rate for her work being published, which says a lot more about how much she submits for consideration, "Money is Like Water" can be found in Beautiful Scruffiness 3. Andy of Speaker's Corner says that he wants to hear more of Nicola's writing, so he had to book her! Maybe it will encourage her to be more prolific.

holocaust memorial day 2012

2012-01-27T16:54:00.001Z

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2012, here are some sample poems from a collection I'm currently reading. The collection is called 'Christmas in Auschwitz', and is by Hungarian poet András Mezei. Published by Smokestack Books.

coming up in york in jan 2012...

2012-01-12T14:07:00.003Z

How lucky we are to have so many events taking place in the North Yorkshire area.

The York Literature Festival website is now up and running and promises to be an exciting four days of events.

The York Festival of Storytelling is taking place on 3rd-4th February at the Friends' Meeting House on Friargate. Organised by Helen Sant and featuring favourite local storytellers including Adrian Spendlow, Alison Morgan and Catherine Heinemeyer as well as members of the Society for Storytelling, there will be something for everyone, no matter how young or how old! The packed programme includes ghost walks, puppet shows, henna tattooing, Indian dance, a magician, and stories for little folks as well as grown-ups.

Poems, Prose and Pints, the fantastic Harrogate open mic, continues to take place at the Tap and Spile in Harrogate on the third Wednesday of the month. The next one will be Wednesday 18th January and a good time is guaranteed!

The first ever Valley Press Fest, organised by the tireless Jamie McGarry, is taking place on Saturday 21st January in Scarborough and is sure to be a 'literary extravaganza' as billed, with events running at Taylors Cafe and Bookshop and at Scarborough Public Library.

With thanks to Andy Humphrey for some of the text here.

york speaker's corner poetry, january 2012

2012-01-10T12:53:00.002Z

The Speakers' Corner, York

Open mic for poetry, storytelling and spoken word performance

with special guests

Second Wednesday of every month, upstairs at the Yorkshire Terrier, Stonegate, YO1 8AS

Doors open 7.30 for an 8 pm start

Admission still just £1. Open mic slots available on the night; sign up before 8 pm to be sure of a turn!

Happy new year! To start off a packed and lively programme of guest features for 2012, on Wednesday 11th we welcome back the brilliant Bob Beagrie who will be reading from his new poetry collection, Glass Characters.

Glass Characters is a collection of poems in three interlinked sequences: ‘Cameos’, ‘Road Trip’ and ‘Slapstick’. Each explores an eclectic array of marginal characters through ordinary, unusual and sometimes extreme situations: from wedding receptions, building sites and supermarkets to film sets, refugee centres and care homes for the elderly – uncovering their vulnerabilities, motivations and secret histories. Many of the poems operate as mini social documentaries and genre-style short films, building up a fractured view of the many peripheral lives that surround our own.

Bob Beagrie is a poet, educational playwright and senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Teesside University. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and his publications include Yoik (Cinnamon, 2007) and The Seer Sung Husband (Smokestack, 2010). His work has also appeared in various anthologies and journals including The Forward Book of Poetry 2009. His poetry has been translated into Urdu, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish and Swedish and he has appeared at festivals and venues all over the world.

"Bob Beagrie is a true and honest Teesside son with a range and interest that travels beyond the north. Glass Characters, for those new to him, offers an excellent introduction to his work in this his strongest collection to-date." Tom Kelly

"Bob Beagrie's poetry represents writing from a busy and strangely beautiful mind. He is someone with a foothold in this world, but who also exists somewhere else entirely magical." Maureen Almond

festive greetings and poem

2011-12-15T17:01:00.000Z

Festive greetings to all of you lovely readers of 'my delayed reactions'.

And here's a new poem.

St. Paul's Churchyard, Autumn 2011

primary coloured tents        ideas
shuttle everywhere like birds

anger well worn     ash   blood   bone

clouds pass over us all
we'll weather them through

as pastel coloured messages
scour paving stones

black and white posters
debate from pillars

we hear a didgeridoo     a guitar

in this heart-shaped core
in the shadow of a mountain.

book of the year

2011-12-08T13:13:00.000Z

How lovely to be asked, as an Open College of the Arts tutor, what my favourite book this year was, for the Open College of the Arts blog. If you have had a conversation about books with me recently, this one has probably been mentioned, and it is here, along with recommendations from other OCA tutors.

poetry snapshots: andy humphrey

2011-12-05T20:34:00.002Z

The Green Man

Each evening, his labours at an end,

the green man

catches the number ten bus

and makes his silent way

through the glistening, lamplit streets.

I didn’t realise

it was him at first,

muffled under moss-coloured wool

and capacious, earth-stained coat.

But that musk gave him away:

the autumn-scent of crumbling bark and badgers,

brown as leaf-litter, heady

with mushrooms, moss and leather. The air

tastes of tilled earth as he passes.

I sneak a glance

when he’s not looking, try to make out

stray twigs poking

from under the cap, the stubble-fuzz of lichen

on his jowls, the weatherbeaten

crags of brows. I picture great fat hands,

hoary, ripe as apples,

curling up hedgehogs into puffballs,

scuffing truffles, turning insect-teeming logs,

bedding in horse-chestnuts until spring.

In cracked grey hobnails

he disembarks like rustled leaf-breath.

A flavour of loam and windfalls

lingers in the air behind him:

the must of seasons turning,

festivals,

harvests.

Andy Humphrey is a freelance writer, part-time law student, trade union activist and former research scientist. He has lived in York for the last five years. His published output includes nearly 50 poems and a number of short stories and he writes his own opinion blog, The Poet's Soapbox. He has won numerous awards for his poetry including six First Prizes in national and international competitions. He spends much of his time promoting up-and-coming writers as a competition judge, poetry slam organiser, and MC of The Speakers' Corner open mic night in York. His writing is heavily influenced by his favourite things which include twilight, fairy stories, English and Celtic folk music, and single malt whisky. His proudest achievements include surviving three years in Milton Keynes, and his ambition is to prove that Dragons really did exist, and possibly still do.

You can read more about Andy and his writing here.

poem and photo: it was a day

2011-12-02T14:02:00.000Z

It was a day

It was a day when planes flew low in the sky
a beautiful day that tasted of sandalwood
a day for a busker tapping on a xylophone
the low sound trailing me through the streets
it was a day to take a name like Elizabeth
a day for sewing up a day like no other
and tucking it into a warm pocket.

I wrote this poem at Helen Cadbury's writing workshop at The Little Festival of Everything.
Photo taken by Chris in St. Ives.

writing website: writing our way home

2011-11-29T17:51:00.001Z

Here's a little bit about Writing Our Way Home, a writing network run by Fiona and Kaspalita. I took an e-course run by Fiona earlier this year, and it helped me to pay more attention to my writing after a busy year.

Fiona and Kaspalita say:

At the heart of what we offer is a marvellous smorgasbord of e-courses. These month-long adventures are for people who are ready to clear space for writing; learning; growing. Our participants tend to have very rich experiences through carrying out daily writing exercises, reflecting on our essays, reading daily emails and sharing their learning in their very own private group. What happens to people on these courses sometimes feels like magic.

We also offer a delicious selection of e-courses personally tutored by Fiona or Kaspa. You will join a supportive cohort of fellow travellers as you learn more about yourself and your relationships with the world and others. In this good company, you'll write your way home. The next available e-courses are Writing Ourselves Alive and Eastern Therapeutic Writing, both running in August.

Fiona also offers creativity coaching for people who want to use creativity to move themselves (or their business) forwards, or to start or complete a creative project. We can do this on Skype, on the telephone or through written reports. The first twenty minutes is free so we can start geting to know each other.

We also have lots of free stuff to offer you. There's this gorgeous community for starters, full of talented folks who are curious about how to live well. Fiona has written an e-book about Lorrie and how her grey life takes on colour. You can try our week-long e-course, The Art of Paying Attention, join our 'a river of stones' in July; write a small stone every day; sign up for our weekly inspirational newsletter.

Writing Our Home is a for profit venture - our aim is to support ourselves so we can continue to help people connect with the world through writing. We'll continue offering a good mix of free and paid for services, and once we're making a living wage we'll donate 10% of our profits to The Amida Trust, a registered charity supporting various socially engaged projects in the UK and internationally.

in Yorkshire this weekend?

2011-11-25T09:22:00.001Z

If you are in Yorkshire this weekend, I will be reading at The Little Festival of Everything at the Fauconberg Arms in Coxwold tomorrow, Saturday 26th November, from 4-5pm, along with my friend, the multi-talented poet, playwright and short story writer Helen Cadbury.

And from 6pm onwards there is a fundraising evening for the York Literature Festival 2012 at the Black Swan folk club in York. A wealth of local talent will be reading their poems and playing music.

poetry venue: buzzwords

2011-11-18T18:00:00.000Z

About Buzzwords. Buzzwords poetry night has an excellent host in Angela France, and an audience of local poets who are working hard at their poetry themselves.

Buzzwords meets regularly for a poetry reading, open mic and workshopping session. See their program for dates and guest poets.

Upstairs at The Exmouth, Bath Road, Cheltenham. The first Sunday of every month.

7pm - workshop

8pm - Guest readings and open mic

£5 waged, £3 unwaged

poetry snapshots special: brian evans-jones's poetry 20:20

2011-10-26T10:08:00.002+01:00

This month, I've been enjoying a daily poem by poet and creative writing tutor Brian Evans-Jones, so I invited him over to my delayed reactions, along with a poem, to talk about his October poetry project.

This poem was written on Friday 7th.

Half five,
the alarm clock
machine guns sleep. Bedroom
black as a bin with lid pressed tight.
Woman

sandbagged,
bunkered in dreams.
He coughs, curses, rises.
No point washing: sweat will oil him
all day.

Red cig
lights a flare path
down the stairs. The kids breathe,
dervishes on hold. Here’s his kit:
thick boots

the weight
of half-lost dreams;
trousers that hiss his steps;
his yellow wasp’s coat. One quick brew,
and go.

Cold bites
like a puppy
learning its lock. He jogs,
joins the wan swarm at the depot,
laughing.

The poems are going up on Facebook at Brian Evans-Jones's Poetry 20:20. Please send a request to join if you'd like to come and read them. For more about the rationale and progress, see Brian's blog.

Brian says: 'Poetry 20:20 is a project I'd been mulling over for a few months and finally decided to do. The basic concept is simple: for four weeks in October, I write a new poem every day, Monday to Friday - making 20 poems in all.

However, because I prefer doing things that are not just difficult but really really difficult, I also decided to set myself a whole other set of constraints: 15 in all, 5 relating to subject matter and prompts, 5 to form, and 5 to style. So most days a poem conforms to 3 constraints, in addition to the simple one of being written at all.

Why set myself such a daft task? Several reasons. Firstly, I've been through a year when I had very little time to write, and now that's over I want to take on something big.

Secondly, perhaps because I hadn't been writing very often, I felt that my poetry had become stuck in a rut of sameness. So I set the constraints to make sure that I would be forced to do other things.

And lastly, because I just want to see if I can do it! So far it's going well: I'm enjoying the pressure and am pleasantly surprised at the quality of what I can produce in just 1 to 2 hours' work.

I'm also reaping some benefits that I didn't anticipate: a big boost in my negative capability, for example, since day after day a chaotic process magically turns into a complete poem. Also a burgeoning ability to cut, quickly and cleanly, to the heart of what I want to write about, without getting hung up on small issues.

Without a doubt, writing a daily poem is something I would heartily recommend.'

summer/autumn round-up 2011

2011-10-20T17:22:00.001+01:00

A round-up of what I've been up to in the writing world recently.

July: Guest reader at a lovely event at the Oxfam Bookshop
Guest reader at the popular and very busy Speaker's Corner
Article published in Jewish Renaissance about visiting India

August: Guest blogger on Andrew Oldham's website
Poem 'A week in the life' published on ink-sweat-and-tears

September: Hm, September was quiet

October: Enjoyed being guest reader and workshop leader at Buzzwords, Cheltenham
Poem 'Alibaug' in Jewish Renaissance
Review of Bobby Parker's 'Digging for Toys' appeared in Reach with a review of Deborah Harvey's 'Communion' due to appear in the November issue, and a 'Jobspot' feature for NAWE due in their next magazine

I also had two poems 'Sari and Chapattis' and 'Dawn Poems' commended in the Leaf Books Poetry Competition
My OU and OCA tutoring is happily continuing.

It's good to make occasional lists like this to remind yourself that lots of interesting things are in fact happening, because you sometimes feel you're shouting into the wind. And there are worse things than shouting into the wind.

coming of age

2011-10-19T08:28:00.003+01:00

I've been getting my poems published for thirteen years now. Which is about a third of my life. So I'd like to say Thank You to those of you who, when you see me (or email me, if we've only ever been in email contact), always ask me how my poetry is going.

If I've remained unblocked until now, it has a lot to do with you. So thank you.

The first poem I ever had published is here.

Coming up soon on this blog: Buzzwords, Writing Our Way Home, Brian Evans-Jones.

poetry snapshots: farhan khan

2011-10-13T19:29:00.001+01:00

For A Few Coins

Shambling along a dirt road,

I come across a pauper girl,

not older than six or seven --

skinny, tanned, in ragged clothes.

She is readying herself

for her amusement trick

to earn some money

off the passers-by.

There is a five-meter tightrope

stretched, half a meter from the ground,

between two short wooden poles.

The girl now walks along it, slowly,

carefully balancing,

encouraged by the clapping and wiggling

of the gathering crowd.

Do they see her tired face,

no light in her eyes?

Do they notice how thin

her stretched little arms are?

Two quick last steps,

and she plunges to the ground

to collect the scattered coins

with speed and zeal.

Farhan, a young poet from the tiny town,Budaun of the vicinity of Uttar Pradesh, India, is doing his Masters of Arts in English Literature from Rohil Khand University, Bareilly. His picturesque poems make a film in the reader’s mind, taking the reader into the abode of palpable emotions to touch the bottom of their heart. His early poems have been placed in an International Online Journal known as Kritya, which is published from Kerala, India, and in several other ezines. He has a blog where a few of his poems can be read by clicking on this link-http://farhanpoetry.blogspot.com/

NaPoWriMo haiku: Sorrento

2011-10-06T17:42:00.008+01:00

As it gets colder and windier, perhaps it's a good time to post the haiku that I wrote on holiday in Sorrento during April, National Poetry Writing Month. They were first posted on Twitter. My A215 Open University students are discovering (or rediscovering) haiku at the moment, too.

Airborne: other planes
hang like babies' mobiles in
sugar-pink sunrise

At Pompeii's theatre
British schoolkids' arias
bring old stones alive

broken graffiti
roadside flowers for Mary
crinkled lemons,rows

Cocoa powder smile
floats on your frothy coffee
you relax today.

Gulls flap black-tipped wings
The white prow of a speedboat
slowly heads to shore

my slow start spirals
to early morning coffee
sharp warmth,sudden peace

The photo was taken by me in Positano.

featured e-zine: message in a bottle

2011-09-30T15:23:00.000+01:00

Online magazine, Message in a Bottle, is run by poet Fiona Sinclair. She says:

Message in a Bottle is an on line poetry magazine that publishes four times a year. Its aim is to present poems that are very well crafted with an emphasis on a skilful use of language and whose subject matter is unusual even quirky.

Over the past three years the magazine has been fortunate enough to attract works from established poets from all over the world. We have also published first poems from young writers such as iDrew who have a fresh and original voice. Indeed we aim every issue to introduce at least one new poet.

To submit to the magazine please send poems in the main body of an email. Every submission is acknowledged regardless of acceptance.

poetry snapshots: oz hardwick

2011-09-26T06:00:00.001+01:00

Good Morning America

They are showing CCTV

of a woman who binges in her sleep, peanut butter

straight from the tub – and we're talking a large tub –

when we cut to ads for Botox, anti-depressants,

America's power-packed super pill, Tom Cruise

live in the studio and fifty percent of pets

are overweight and two to three percent of Americans

will experience sleep violence at some time in their lives.

Good morning America, this could be the smallest woman

ever to have a baby, with cameras in the operating theater,

but first our lovable losers in Family Feuds,

forty seven percent say 'wrong' and the mad auntie

gets the laughs, loses points, goes home

a winner and we cut to ads. I leave for breakfast

on disposable plates amongst soldiers reading the news,

camouflaged, silent, trying not to think of percentages.

From The Illuminated Dreamer (Oversteps, 2010)

Oz Hardwick is a York-based writer, photographer and musician. He has published three well-received poetry collections, most recently The Illuminated Dreamer (Oversteps, 2010), as well as many individual poems, stories and articles in journals, magazines and anthologies. He has read his work in the UK, Europe and US, as well as on radio and television. As Paul Hardwick, Oz is Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University College, where he is Programme Leader for English and Writing and also teaches medieval literature. He has published widely on literature and art history, and his latest book is English Medieval Misericords: The Margins of Meaning (Boydell, 2011).

'The more one reads Hardwick’s poems the more they have to say… the nearer one approaches, the more they open up, the warmer the embrace’ – The Black Mountain Review.

poetry snapshots: miles cain

2011-09-19T15:30:00.000+01:00

The Bricklayer’s Lament

The mixer span on its own orbit

the day after she left. He laid

cement on the trowel, detesting

the horizon as the wall crept up,

killing chances of junk mail

and evangelists. Anger

snapped in his wrists

as he spread the sighing glue,

inventing the wall, tall as pain.

It shrank the world, obscuring

other lives with twenty two lines

of perfect red rectangles that said no.

He retreated, felt the border’s shadow

loom against his back. The night was cool,

the rooms darker than before

as the radio hummed about hearts.

By afternoon he was itching at the quiet,

wanted a paper, a pint of milk,

chat containing eyes. Sighing, he grabbed

the hammer. A section of wall surrendered.

He stared at four bricks, saw

how they’d been tattooed from outside

with a chalky heart and arrow.

He left the house and looked for skies.

Miles Cain is a York-based writer, musician and storyteller. He's organised York Literature Festival, written for the BBC and won prizes for his poems. A debut collection, The Border, is about to be published by Scarborough publisher Valley Press. 'I love Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Philip Larkin and Matthew Sweeney,' says Miles, whose work has appeared in Aesthetica, Beautiful Scruffiness, Current Accounts, Dreamcatcher,
Frogmore Papers, Obsessed With Pipework, Orbis, South Bank Poetry and more. 'The Border started out as something more cheeky humorous,' he says, 'but eventually became a set of poems that were a little darker. I've worked as a youth worker and writer in residence in a prison, and there's a lot of urban paranoia in the collection.' The Border is an unsettling but commanding read. Often the poems tell miniature stories and have surreal touches as Miles muses on technology, relationships and the power of music. Find out more at Miles's website and visit Valley Press to order a copy of the book.

Miles will be reading poems from The Border and playing a selection of songs at the following gigs in Autumn 2011:

September 22nd – Scarborough Library : Valley Press evening, starts at 6p.m.

October 1st – Book launch at City Screen, York, 8pm. £7, includes copy of The Border
October 5th - Fresh Ink, Upstairs at Hartley's, Newland Avenue, Hull starts at 7.30pm

Wednesday 12th - Leeds Trinity University College

Thursday October 13th – Thursday Night Live, Hull starts at 7.30 pm

Thursday October 27th – Brighouse Library, Readers' and Writers' Festival, Calderdale, starts at 7.30p.m

Friday October 28th - Sentinel Literature Festival, London

Sat 29th October - Pocktoberfest, Pocklington Arts Centre
Tuesday November 8th - Grafton Acoustic, Newland Avenue, Hull from 8p.m

Thursday November 17th - Simply Books, Pocklington at 7.30 p.m. Tickets £8 includes copy of the book

poetry snapshots: chris kinsey

2011-09-11T17:37:00.001+01:00

FLINT

(With a line

by Wallace Stevens.)

“And nothing need be explained,”

said the stone,

sea-spittle drying.

Not knapped,

nor chipped

to blade or arrowhead.

Not struck for sparks

nor saved for slingshot,

but fingered

out of a shingle bed

and cradled in a palm,

on a morning where gulls,

whiter than Sizewell’s vanishing globe,

nestle into footprints

the crunch has walked from.

Since winning an Arts Council of Wales bursary for new writing in 2000, Chris Kinsey has been a freelance writer, tutor, and rescuer of greyhounds. Her previous books are Kung Fu Lullabies and Cure for a crooked smile, both published by Ragged Raven Press. Swarf, published by Smokestack Books, will be launched on 15th September at the Oriel Davis Gallery.
Her stage play, Feathering the Dark, was shown at Aberystwyth Arts Centre and her short play, I and I, at Venue Cymru. She writes a regular Nature Diary for Cambria and occasionally for Natur Cymru. Chris has read at the Ledbury and Hay festivals, and her work has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and Radio Wales. She is currently Writer-in-residence at Oriel Davies Gallery.

'it's absurd, but I feel insecure': a found poem

2011-09-05T13:00:00.001+01:00

Police in fatal Smiley Culture arrest will not face charges

My Bullingdon days were not like the riots

Consumer confidence tumbles amid debt crisis and market upheaval

Rupert given £7m bonus despite scandal

Jamie Oliver calls for global action to tackle obesity

Get your rosaries off my ovaries, as we used to say

Nick Clegg warns housing minister about cuts to homeless services

What MPs must know before they vote to wreck the NHS

Chronic fatigue syndrome researchers face death threats from militants

Dale Farm travellers lose legal battle against eviction

Free schools built in mainly middle-class and wealthy areas

School uniform costs 'break the bank' for poorer families

Edinburgh tram project: a right royal mile

So, was this a war for oil?

It's absurd, but I feel insecure

This is a found poem, constructed from recent headlines in The Guardian newspaper. The title is the title quote from an excellent interview with playwright David Hare.

poetry snapshots: david cooke

2011-08-29T06:00:00.003+01:00

WORK HORSES

The clanking compound of the brewery

where my dad did shifts, whenever

work was slack on the buildings,

is buried now somewhere

beneath the panels of the multi-storey

car park and the chat that drifts across

from the cappuccino pavement.

Born to a scant inheritance

of rushy Sligo acres, my dad was bred

like his brothers to follow the work,

sending remittances home

from London, Reading, and Philadelphia –

for worklessness

would have been their defining shame.

And somewhere in the grainy hinterland

of just remembered childhood

I am watching a drayman

as he guides heraldic, towering horses

through a time-thinned stream of traffic.

Their sinews barely tensed,

they go unfussed about their business.

Published in Agenda Poetry Magazine

David Cooke won a Gregory Award in 1977 and published Brueghel’s Dancers in 1984, but stopped writing for twenty years. His poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals such as Agenda, The Bow Wow Shop, Critical Quarterly, Cyphers, The Frogmore Papers, The Irish Press, The London Magazine, The North, Orbis, Other Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry London, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Reader, The SHOp, Stand, Staple, and The Use of English. His retrospective collection, In the Distance, has just been published by Night Publishing and a further collection, Work Horses will be published by Ward Wood Publishing in 2012.

poetry snapshots: fiona sinclair

2011-08-22T06:00:00.001+01:00

When a sex symbol takes to sensible shoes

Suddenly across the store, through a middle aged

bottle glass blur, I spot blonde hair familiar as a logo,

but hesitate unable to make out that fantasy body

drawn by an adolescent boy on his exercise book.

Close up, these photographs from the ‘Misfits’ are like

meeting an old friend after a debilitating illness.

Trademark eyeliner has become heavy shutters closing

on the empty windows of a house whose occupant has left.

Her body still forms a perfect 8 but is not gift wrapped in

gold lame instead she is a hillbilly’s wife in white cotton

Sunday dress posing in a Steinbeck farm yard.

Looking down the barrel of the camera, lips no longer

part in the throes of an orgasmic O, but are forced into a

localised smile. The confection of a single 1950s picture

draws my eyes like wasps to a baker’s window, leaving me

craving other heyday poses, addictive as sugar.

Paying my last respects to the snapshots from her final film,

I notice, more shocking than being shared around like a

joint by the Kennedy boys’ club, her comfortable shoes.

Fiona Sinclair returned to writing poetry after a very long pause. University as a mature student and then teaching English for fifteen years meant there was no space in her life for writing creatively. Ironically, ill health has allowed her to take up poetry again . She aims to write for at least an hour every day. Fiona still feels she is only as good as her last poem. Recently she has begun to review collections for both 'Happanstance' and 'Ink Sweat and Tears'. It took her some while to get the hang of being allowed to express an opinion about literature and she is nevertheless a benevolent critic of other people's work. Her own poetry has been published in numerous reputable magazines. http://www.fionasinclairpoetry.com/ Her second collection is due out late this year from Indigo Dreams Press. She is the editor of the on line poetry magazine Message in a Bottle.

classic poem and photo: the tamed deer

2011-08-20T09:21:00.000+01:00

The Tamed Deer

Like as a huntsman after weary chase

Seeing the game from him escaped away,

Sits down to rest him in some shady place,

With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:

So, after long pursuit and vain assay,

When I all weary had the chase forsook,

The gentle deer returned the self-same way,

Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.

There she beholding me with milder look,

Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide;

Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,

And with her own good-will her firmly tied.

Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild

So goodly won, with her own will beguiled.

by Edmund Spenser 1552-1599

Photo taken by me in India.

guest blogger on andrew oldham's website

2011-08-17T06:00:00.006+01:00

Since Monday 15th August, I've been blogging on Andrew Oldham's website, as I'm guest blogger this fortnight. Take a look.

poetry snapshots: jamie mcgarry

2011-08-15T06:00:00.001+01:00

The Haunting of Poet by Snail

Has it been four days now?

Must have been. Nearly a week

since I did the deed. It was dark,

and I was hurrying – I didn’t see

his form, the path in front of me.

My careless size-ten shoe came down,

and crushed his hopes and dreams.

My stride stopped mid-step. Sickened

by that sound, the chilling crunch;

I saw him, when I lifted up.

A tragic mix of slime and shrapnel.

And now – although you’ll doubt –

I swear he’s back. I am the mollusc’s

sole unfinished business

on this fast and brutal Earth.

You’ll say it’s in my head, if I report

that I can hear his death

in every mistimed gearshift,

every mouth devouring crisps.

But it’s not my conscience doing this,

it’s him. He’s putting me through hell.

I hear, with every step I take,

the breaking of the tell-tale shell.

Last night, I thought I saw him,

bright and cold, in death.

Slowly sliding next to me,

and felt his tiny, ghostly breath.

‘It was dark!’ I scream. ‘I was hurrying!’

His silence says it all. But still,

you don’t believe me? Come on round,

see the trails across my walls...

and explain the vengeful holes

in my fridge-ridden, cellophaned lettuce.

Published in 'The Dead Snail Diaries' Valley Press, 2011

Jamie McGarry was born in Norwich, in April 1988, and grew up in North Wales and Yorkshire. He attended university in Scarborough, earning a degree in English Literature and Culture, as well as founding a publishing label, Valley Press, in 2008. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this led to the release of several books by Jamie – including a novel, The Waiting Game (2007), and three volumes of poetry, What Do I Know Anyway? (2008), Autopilot (2009) and most recently, The Dead Snail Diaries (2011). He currently lives in East Yorkshire, where he runs Valley Press full-time, pursuing these bookish interests to his heart’s content.

A slow-moving, brown-hued creature, Jamie regularly enjoys a leafy salad, and has (on occasion) been known to come out of his shell.

a week in the life on ink-sweat-and-tears

2011-08-11T12:00:00.004+01:00

Delighted to have my poem, 'A week in the life', published here on the vibrant online magazine, ink-sweat-and-tears

classic poem and photo: london by william blake

2011-08-09T10:08:00.002+01:00

London

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames doth flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind forg'd manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry

Every black'ning Church appals,

And the hapless Soldier's sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls:

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlot's curse

Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,

and blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Three nights of rioting. London has been mindlessly smashed and burnt. The ministers and police chiefs have preferred to remain in their luxury holiday villas. Mark Duggan's family is only just now getting answers. And the unsustainable financial system is collapsing.

Lines of poems run through my head. Lines from Yeats's 'The Second Coming', as well as the first verse of this poem by William Blake. 'London' was written in 1793, showing Blake's anger at the economic system and the political ideology. After revolutionary riots, harsh anti-seditious laws were passed, and the army was stationed all over London. Blake himself was later put on trial for 'uttering treasonable words'.

Ominous times.

The image is of the Great Fire of London, 1666.

classic poem and photo: the diary of murasaki shikibu

2011-08-05T06:00:00.004+01:00

Painting: Sweet Flowers Soaring High by Lea Prince

"I can see the garden from my room beside the entrance to the gallery. The air is misty, the dew is still on the leaves. The Lord Prime Minister is walking there; he orders his men to cleanse the brook. He breaks off a stalk of omenaishi [flower maiden] which is in full bloom by the south end of the bridge. He peeps in over my screen! His noble appearance embarrasses us, and I am ashamed of my morning [not yet painted and powdered] face. He says, "Your poem on this! If you delay so much the fun is gone!" and I seize the chance to run away to the writing-box, hiding my face–

Flower-maiden in bloom–

Even more beautiful for the bright dew,

Which is partial, and never favors me.

"So prompt!" said he, smiling, and ordered a writing-box to be brought [for himself].

His answer:

The silver dew is never partial.

From her heart

The flower-maiden's beauty. "

From 'The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu'. Shikibu was a lady of the Japanese court during A.D. 1007-1010.

The entire diary can be found here.

Reading this diary several years ago, I was fascinated by the diarist's world, and was delighted to discover an early woman poet!

Lea Prince's paintings have been exhibited at Ilford Central Library and at the Valentine's Mansion, Gantshill.

poetry snapshots: ian parks

2011-08-01T16:36:00.005+01:00

MAINLAND

After the chat shows and the bulletins,

the forecasts and the late reviews

I trim the oil-lamp, clear a space

and take one final look across the straits.

I came here to escape a darkening world.

Why should I listen to its news?

The mainland is a purple smudge;

the sea so shallow and so calm

you'd think that you could walk across

instead of waiting for the week it takes

before the ferry makes the harbour mouth

bringing cards and letters, word from home.

There's nothing but a mile

of dry-stone walls and unrelenting rain

between this cottage and the nearest farm

hidden by the intervening ridge.

Suspended here, the moment waits

still stranded in another century

when news was as fast as a gasping horse

and last year's revolution still to come.

Described as 'a heroic figure in Yorkshire poetry' (Points North Review) Ian Parks was one of the Poetry Society New Poets in 1996. Poems appear in Poetry Review, Stand, The Observer, The Liberal, The Independent on Sunday, Poetry (Chicago) and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. His collections include Shell Island (2006), The Cage (2008), The Landing Stage (2010) and Love Poems 1979-2009. The Exile's House is forthcoming from Waterloo Press.

poetry snapshots: pat jourdan

2011-07-18T19:00:00.001+01:00

Strategy Sleeve-Notes

A whirr of plane

disturbs a summer night,

its pathway shadowing across

snazzy granite-topped kitchens,

streets bristling with white paint,

trim-paced black shiny railings.

Where is the poem about rendition?

Closed-door meetings,

masked movements above us,

hundreds quietly removed.

They fly above our expensive roofs

past the expanse of evening

that supports no regime

stalking the streets of London below.

We have the solace of pure cotton sheets

but even as we touch

the night is fucked.

This poem is taken from the new collection "Citizeness", Motet Press c/o patjourdan@eircom.net

Pat Jourdan was born in the centre of Liverpool, where she studied painting at the College of Art. Exhibitions of paintings and readings of poetry have been held in London, Norwich, Dublin and Galway. Winner of several poetry and short story awards in Ireland and England. She keeps on painting while finishing the next novel, (after “Finding Out”) with two collections of short stories and two poetry collections already published.

Websites : http://www.patjourdan.co.uk/ and http://www.patjourdan.net/

the dead snail diaries

2011-07-13T09:44:00.001+01:00

Here's an innovative launch idea - for The Dead Snail Diaries, the third poetry collection by Jamie McGarry, the founder of Valley Press.
On Thursday, 28th July, Jamie and some assistants will be performing the entire snail book in Scarborough Library, starting just after 6pm - tickets £3 on the door. Should be fun! Here's a poem from the book.

A Love Poem: From Snail to Slug

God made us brown so we’d be hard

to spot upon his fertile soil,

to hide from the birds...which he made as well...

to cower, dodge, to postpone hell.

But slug does not hide, or flinch back.

His coat? Uncompromising BLACK.

He turns defence into attack.

Oh slug – oh glorious slug.

God gave us shells to weigh us down.

Without them, we would HURTLE round,

so common sense suggests. Who’d beat us,

across a distance of ten metres?

But slug, dear slug, you have the grace

to not rub freedom in our face,

to slow your stride to match our pace.

Oh slug – oh glorious slug.

God made us quiet, thoughtful, wait.

He taught us manners, and restraint.

He taught us not to stay out late,

we’re model garden citizens.

But slug, he DEAFENS when he speaks!

He goes out seven nights a week!

Beer-swilling, hard-living, party beast.

Oh slug – oh glorious slug.

I’d sell my soul to be like him.

Vacate my shell, and dye my skin.

I’d go twice weekly to the gym,

if doing so would let me in

to doors in town that say ‘slugs only.’

But slug accepts no fake, no phony.

I’ll love, but I will never be

a slug – oh glorious slug.

guest reading at speaker's corner, york

2011-07-11T14:28:00.001+01:00

I am looking forward to being the guest poet at Speaker's Corner, upstairs at the Yorkshire Terrier, Stonegate, York, this Wednesday. It starts at 7.30 pm. I've attended before to listen and for an open mic slot, and the atmosphere is warm, with a lively range of poetry being read. Admission only £1.
http://www.yorkspeakerscorner.co.uk/index.htm

poetry phobia - an alternative cure

2011-07-08T12:07:00.000+01:00

Are you poetry phobic? Research carried out for Mslexia suggests that many people are hostile to reading poetry:
http://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/poetry_portal/poetry_phobia

The artist Georgia O'Keeffe once said:

'Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.'

I believe that this is true about reading poetry.

Here is an alternative cure for poetry phobia, that I hope will help you to see how you can befriend poems.

1. Read a poem out loud (or, if you are reading this on the bus, then silently will do).

2. Read the poem as if you are listening to a friend, but focus on trying to read their mood, rather than wrestling with the meaning of the words. Allow yourself to be drawn in to the sounds and rhythms.

3. When you have finished the poem, listen out for the silence at the end of the poem - just after the last word. Then look around you. Do colours seem more vivid? Do you notice something surprising, suddenly, out of the window of your bus? Or do your eyes flash back to the title of the poem? If so, the poem has done something to you. It has worked on you (rather than you winning a wrestling match with the poem).

4. Now you can go back and read the poem again. Its sounds and images should hang together more cohesively this time.

Good luck!

poetry snapshots: emma lee

2011-07-04T11:57:00.000+01:00

Still Life with a static Matrix Screensaver

Only the dust and crumb-filled keyboard

and photo of a blonde toddler hint

at human life. Neat matt-black ring-binders,

stuffed with minutes and agendas,

line-up vertically like school children

who know today is not a day to distract teacher.

On a blank screen, green machine code hangs

like crimped string, each alphanumeric

glows slightly out of focus as if stuck

in a quantum state – simultaneously yes and no,

waiting to drop into decision.

Published in "Not a Muse", Haven Books.

Emma Lee’s stories and poems are widely published. Her poetry collection, “Yellow Torchlight and the Blues” is available from Original Plus (UK) and novel “Bitter Fame” via http://www.bitterfame.webs.com/. She blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com./

review of centuries of skin in south magazine

2011-06-28T14:35:00.000+01:00

Ragged Raven Press and I are very pleased with the review of 'Centuries of Skin', by Ross Cogan, in 'South' magazine.

A couple of quotes:

'Mostly, however, Ezekiel stays firmly in the present, calmly observing the particulars of everyday life. At best she is a skilled minituarist - a Jane Austen cataloguing the telling details of women's lives, of city life, even of life seen from the bus...'

'I found this collection life affirming in its knack of finding joy in the smallest of gestures and the oddest of places'

http://www.southpoetry.org/

poetry snapshots: david mac

2011-06-20T18:35:00.000+01:00

Red Beat

Your heart is a big red bell,

a pumping howl,

a hot steamy pie,

and so is mine.

They keep their legendary ticking,

their sore beat

like the glad voice of God.

Listen…

We are alive, we are in love,

the pulse is fierce.

Do you hear?

Listen…

Our hearts’ clock is

the only time that matters.

David Mac is 32-year-old wino forklift driver whose work can be found in Ambit, Purple Patch, The Journal, Weyfarers, United Press, Monkey Kettle, Clockwise Cat, Urban District Writer, erbacce, Streetcake, Urban Landscapes, Neon Highway, KRAX, Moodswing, Antique Children, Danse Macabre, Mud Luscious, Burning Houses, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Poetry Over Coffee, Global Tapestry Journal, Obsessed With Pipework, Howls and Pushycats, Word Riot, Decanto, as well as being a featured poet on The Poetry Kit’s ‘Caught On The Net’.

Many self-publishd chapbooks available plus ‘These Dirty Nothings’ and ‘Room is Brutal’ from erbacce-press.

He is currently locked in a mad room somewhere in the Bedfordshire Hell writing his cheap, dirty, twisted words, and drinking his vat of cheap red wine.

Read more words on Write Out Loud: www.writeoutloud.net/poets/davidmac

lutonghoul@hotmail.co.uk

poetry snapshots: andrew oldham

2011-06-06T15:37:00.001+01:00

The Real Icarus

The men have taken to shore,

drunk and singing, arm in arm with whores.

My son, their Captain, he yells, keep her fast,

sing my shanties or feel the lash.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.

Down by the docks he pisses on tramps,

shows them wax burns, all born from lamps.

In alleys, in taverns, he spreads his lies,

shows them goose feathers, bullshit flies.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.

I am immortal, says my son, women snigger,

cocks his pistol, smiles, pulls the trigger.

A snap, a fizz against wax, a misfired dud,

my son is not born of my blood.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.

Icarus fell here, women say, as I come and go,

in a tavern, in a marketplace, he performed his show.

No fizz, I melted the wax from the barrel of his gun,

he took away my home, my life, my inventions, my son.

Away away-oh, away away-oh.

Andrew Oldham has been a columnist for The London Magazine. His fiction has featured in The Sunday Times and his first poetry collection, Ghosts of a Low Moon (Lapwing, Belfast 2010), is available at http://www.andrewoldham.co.uk/

reading at the Oxfam BookFest

2011-05-31T11:28:00.001+01:00

Looking forward to being a guest reader at the Oxfam BookFest,
on Friday 8th July at 6.30, Oxfam Books, High Petergate, York.
I'll be reading with Oz Hardwick, Miles Cain, and David Cooke.
All interesting and experienced poets - check out their links below.

http://oxfambookspetergateyork.wordpress.com/

http://www.overstepsbooks.com/poets/oz-hardwick/

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/milescainpage.html

http://www.nightpublishing.com/david-cooke.html

poetry snapshots: nina simon

2011-05-23T09:41:00.000+01:00

Painting the Oceans

I paint oceans

with violent hues -

heavy lines stir surging seas,

thick brush strokes

smash waves against breakers,

while white foamy spume

pounds shingle beaches.

Blues and greens

swirl into darkness,

leaden clouds

billow in deepest grey.

I stipple in a small sailboat;

tossed and thrown

on turbulent tides,

its lone occupant

clinging to the mast,

as water washes away outlines.

Published in Misfit Mirror: an anthology of poetry and flash fiction by Earlyworks Press, 2008

Nina works for Redbridge Schools’ Library Service.. Although she has always loved to read, writing is something she only began by accident about seven years ago. At last she feels she has found a means to express herself and channel her over-active imagination into poetry and short stories.

special feature - fiction snapshots: steve toase

2011-05-16T11:26:00.001+01:00

Each step across the drowned field brought the water higher and higher, the ground sloping down to the bank. I stood in front of the thicket of broken kindling. The angular face turned to me.

Her eyes were murky and the colour of silt. In those seconds she shared her secrets with me. I saw her on an Indonesian beach skin bejewelled with sand and grief; in a humid valley coated with a swarm of malarial mosquitoes; sitting on a bench in Mingora breathing cholera into the morning air. She smiled and for a moment I saw the goddess that coated herself in death and disease, and knew she would devour me completely. Her names came unbidden, Jenny Greenteeth, Mht Wrt. Maine Milscothach, Naamah. She was the Daughter of the Flood and the Mother Deluge. The bride whose byre stood on foundations of driftwood, and took a tithe from those cities in which she lounged.

I expected her voice to eddy and whisper, but her words roared with the force of a thousand gallons a second; a voice that eroded rock and life.

Extract from 'Rising', published in Streetcake Magazine issue 14. http://www.streetcakemagazine.com/

In his first 18 months of writing fiction ten of Steve's stories have been accepted for publication, appearing in Streetcake Magazine, NthPosition and Cafe Irreal, amongst others. His writing leans towards mythic fiction and magic realism. He also dabbles in crime writing, with a prize winning story 'Ripples'.

http://www.stevetoase.co.uk/

poetry snapshots: michelle mcgrane

2011-05-09T17:53:00.000+01:00

'Terra Marique Potens'

So, there we were, me and the wee'un at my breast, nestled in my sheepskin coat, cradled by the pitch and roll, when a fearsome din broke out on deck. While Tioboid slept the sleep of newborns, Cap'n O' Domhnaill burst into the cabin urging me to rally the crew. Sticky with birthing, milk and sweat, cursing the eejits who wouldn't grant a woman rest after labour, I sallied above with my musketoon, legs shaking as if I'd been keelhauled from Inishlaghan to Carrigeenglass Norht. Through flags of smoke, a square-rigged galley, its blackjack flapping as corsairs swarmed aboard. Snugging the stock into my shoulder, I picked out a flinty crag of a man bawling like the divil hisself and assailing my lads with a boarding axe. Aiming the flared muzzle, I cocked the hammer, squeezed the trigger. When he hit the boards, mouth agape, the remaining Berbers scarpered like bilge rats. I succoured the babe wrawling for teat and ordered all hands to bear up for port.

Published in The Suitable Girl, Pindrop Press, 2010

Michelle McGrane is the author of The Suitable Girl (published by Pindrop Press in the United Kingdom and Modjaji Books in South Africa). She lives in Johannesburg and blogs at Peony Moon.

Joanna at the Bollywood Bazaar #2

2011-05-06T11:38:00.000+01:00

Video clip of Joanna at the Bollywood Bazaar

During my India trip in February I made some surprising connections. One of these was coming across a shop selling film posters of some of the films written by my Bollywood scriptwriter great-grandfather, Joseph David Penkar - including Alam Ara. As the film reels were almost certainly destroyed when the film archives in Pune, where they were stored, caught fire in 2003, these posters are precious links to the films themselves.

This video clip, of my visit to the Bollywood Bazaar in Mutton Street, Chor Bazaar, Mumbai, is also on my India blog http://josephdavidpenkar.blogspot.com/.

Thanks to Millie Kieve for her generous permission to use her video clip, and to Shahid Mansoori, an expert on early Bollywood, who runs this wonderful shop and helped me find the posters. The shop's email is minimarket@rediffmail.com. They are closed on Fridays.

Off to Staples superstore now for some big picture frames...

poetry snapshots: helen cadbury

2011-04-25T16:52:00.010+01:00

From the Norse

Stones and sand

tipped in to my mouth

when I first spoke

your language.

How I gave myself away

as the wind blew

my vowels into

a new shape.

Published in Matter 9: http://www.makingwritingmatter.co.uk/

Helen Cadbury writes poetry and plays. If she can sit down for long enough, she writes stories and novels. Some poems have been published, three plays have been performed, one short story has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the novels take up space on her hard drive. She lives in York.

poetry snapshots: juliet wilson

2011-04-11T21:19:00.000+01:00

Amazonia

The year I was born

the plane went down

over uncharted land, drowning

in endless forest, choking damp heat.

Rare parrots watched.

Howler monkeys shouted

through the trees

news of something never seen before.

The crew had no chance.

Rescue teams heard the call

but failed to locate

in endless dense canopy.

Now the bones and wreckage

lie in arid suburban gardens

where at night, the ghosts of howler monkeys scream

and extinct parrots flutter through restless dreams.

published in Unthinkable Skies, 2010, Calder Wood Press (http://www.calderwoodpress.co.uk/).

Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh based poet and adult education tutor. She blogs at Crafty Green Poet (http://craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com/) and edits the online poetry journal Bolts of Silk (http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com/). Her poetry chapbook Unthinkable Skies was published in 2010 by Calder Wood Press (http://www.calderwoodpress.co.uk/). She is a volunteer with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust, helping to look after one of Edinburgh's rivers (http://www.waterofleith.org.uk/)

classic poem, with photo of king's cross station

2011-04-06T14:11:00.000+01:00

At the Railway Station, Upway

"There is not much that I can do,
For I've no money that's quite my own!"
Spoke up the pitying child -
A little boy with a violin
At the station before the train came in, -
"But I can play my fiddle to you,
And a nice one 'tis, and good in tone!"
The man in the handcuffs smiled;
The constable looked, and he smiled, too,
As the fiddle began to twang;

And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang
Uproariously:
"This life so free
Is the thing for me!"
And the constable smiled, and said no word,
As if unconscious of what he heard;
And so they went on till the train came in -
The convict, and boy with the violin.

by Thomas Hardy

special feature (part two) albert huffstickler

2011-04-01T12:55:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased to be featuring a painting by Albert Huffstickler, and Felicia Mitchell's poem 'Victim'.

'Victim' was written in response to writing by Albert Huffstickler (Huff).

Huff, in turn, created this oil pastel picture in response to Felicia's painting.

Felicia says, 'Huff had so much creative energy. And he inspired so many other writers and artists'.

More of Huff's paintings and poems can be seen on the archived website http://www.reocities.com/albert_huffstickler/

Oil pastel by Albert Huffstickler. Permission granted by Felicia Mitchell.

Victim

For Albert Huffstickler

There is no furniture in her room,
save the shelf where her hymen lies
like a geological specimen.

The museum is her mother's.
Flaunting her proprietary rights,
the mother ignores her own signs
that say "do not touch."
Jealousy, pride, awe, confusion:
this is what the mother feels.

The girl feels her insides turned inside out.
Her face is inside her belly,
her belly where her lips should be.
Her eyes must substitute for her heart.

The fluorescent lights never shut off.

The mother is turned inside out as well.
Instead of being content to push this girl
right out of her fertile womb,
as far away as she can go,
she wants to climb inside her daughter
and stay there.
She wants to get there first.

There is no father.

Felicia Mitchell

Credit:

The Medulla Review 1.2 (2010). Online

http://www.themedullareview.com/Felicia_Mitchell.html

Also included in The Medulla Review Anthology I (201o). Print

poetry snapshots: sarah james

2011-03-28T12:09:00.000+01:00

Unsubmerged

In Dominica, an earthquake cracked

Roger’s home like a walnut.

His wife’s omelette pan skipped off the stove,

their bed hopped the floor, chairs

pirouetted into shaking walls.

But cotted snug in a box for their breakfast –

half a dozen eggs, unbroken.

Visiting his mother in Grenada,

a hurricane peeled her house like an orange.

Winds stacked roofs, turned

tamarind trees into mops, uprooted

nutmeg plantations but left the glass

of his daughter’s portrait a smooth,

unrippled ocean.

Half-submerged in New Orleans, Roger’s shoes

walked in pairs on water. Tables arked,

chairs waded out the doors

and dead rats trailed the apartment stairs,

while his daughter’s dress

hung freshly pressed on her bedroom door:

dry and pink with flowers.

Sarah James

From ‘Into the Yell’ by Sarah James, published by Circaidy Gregory Press (http://www.circaidygregory.co.uk/ ), July 2010.

Sarah James is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer and journalist, who has been widely published in anthologies, literary journals and online.

She was shortlisted in Templar Poetry 2009 Pamphlet and Collection Competition, had two poems shortlisted in The Plough Prize 2009 and was joint winner of the Exmoor Society’s Poetry Competition 2010. Her website and blog is at http://www.sarah-james.co.uk./

special feature (part one): albert huffstickler

2011-03-24T12:04:00.002Z

I first came across Albert Huffstickler (known simply as 'Huff') when 'Fire' magazine published a few of his poems in 2005. I was so moved by them that I bought his selected poems, 'Why I Write in Coffee Houses and Diners' (available from Amazon). Six years later, I'm still turning to Huff's poems for his wisdom and clarity. He was a well-known poet in Austin, Texas, and many of his poems reflect the area.

Poet and academic Felicia Mitchell wrote an introduction to 'Why I Write in Coffee Houses and Diners'. Although Huff died in 2002, his legacy continues to grow, and I'm pleased to be able to include a tribute poem, 'The angel of death disguised as a park bench', written by Felicia and dedicated to artist Sylvie Rosenthal, who in turn has created her own tribute to Huff. In this lovely poem, there are plenty of 'nods' to the images and characters that Huff wrote about.

The angel of death disguised as a park bench

for Sylvie Rosenthal

It’s time to rest,

to stop shuffling your bird-boned feet

down sidewalks and across streets

and through alleys

where men who look just like you

nod their blessings.

There’s a woman with a chisel in her hand

She wants to reshape your brow.

All those furrows could be alabaster-smooth.

One touch, and she will remind you:

there is rest for the weary.

Listen to the advice the world gives you.

The sparrow on your shoulder could be a sign.

The crow cawing at the sun could be just as right

as the cashier at the last coffee house you sat at.

“Will that be all, sir?” she asked.

“That will be all,” you said.

All all all all —the crow caws.

The sparrow shudders

In front of you, the woman with the chisel

points to a park bench.

She wants you to sit down,

to rest your bird-boned feet,

so she can reshape your brow.

Next to her, the angel of death disguised as a park bench

beckons you like a mother.

Your mother, or god, your god-like mother.

There is rest for the weary.

Have a seat and let the sculptor heal you.

By the time you leave this earth,

there will no trace of it in your flesh,

just one more statue in the park

encircled with pigeons who will never go hungry

and sparrows.

Felicia Mitchell © 2002

Published in FIRE (Bristol, England), 2003

In response to Rosenthal’s memorial for Huffstickler:

An image is here: http://www.woodworkingforwomen.com/gallery/SylvieRosenthal.cfm
Rosenthal’s site, with contact info. http://www.sylvierosenthal.com/portfolio/furniture.html

Wikipedia page for Albert Huffstickler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Huffstickler

the disaster in Japan

2011-03-16T13:23:00.000Z

Feeling very sad this week for Japan. The sudden shock and tumult of it all.

Here are a couple of haiku by Basho (1644-1694). One of sadness, one of hope.

The petals tremble

The petals tremble
on the yellow mountain rose -
roar of the rapids

As they begin to rise again

As they begin to rise again
Chrysanthemums faintly smell,
After the flooding rain.

Bollywood blogspot

2011-03-16T10:54:00.002Z

More posts coming up soon on my other blog about my Bollywood great-grandfather, including information about my recent trip to India. Joseph David Penkar blogspot

Meanwhile, future 'Poetry Snapshots' poets include: Helen Cadbury, Michelle McGrane, Nina Simon, Andrew Oldham, plus special features on mythic fiction writer Steve Toase and famous Texas poet Albert Huffstickler.

poetry snapshots:paul tanner (tanner)

2011-03-14T11:05:00.000Z

Chemicals

Hiding up in the stockroom with Tom

I took a bite out me apple

and I turned to him and concluded

‘This apple be very appley!’

he said that was good.

And then I went off on one

about how computers

and cars

and even pens

never bloody work,

that nothing manmade

does what it’s meant to

but look here,

this natural product

free from the mother earth

is bang on the money ...

then I remembered

that everything is owned

and you can’t simply

go up to a fucking god-given tree

and take an apple off it

without getting

a shotgun salt pellet up your arse

and a fine and a jail sentence

cos you dared to sample

what is essentially a plant

that was given to us

by the fucking natural world

ferchrisake

and then I was all pissed off again.

'Congealed Anfield '84. Once for the money, twice for the love. I peer out grids and get the low-down on this society effort you're all making. Tis somewhat shite to be brutally honest, squire. If you kill the head the body will die. NATIONAL SERVICE FOR ALL TEBBITS. Fin.'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/TANNER/138229396199355?ref=sgm

Joanna's note: Tanner's poems have been published in a variety of magazines. He wrote 'Chemicals' especially for Poetry Snapshots.

spring update 2011

2011-03-07T09:05:00.004Z

Very pleased to have two poems forthcoming in 'Obsessed with Pipework' and one poem in 'Reach'. I also have a short prose piece forthcoming in 'Sarasvati' magazine.
Sadly, I don't have any guest readings coming up now...However, I very much enjoyed reading from 'Safe Passage' and 'Centuries of Skin' to a Jewish group at the Tower House Hotel in Cochin, India, last month. I'm not sure yet whether more poems or more prose will result from my trip to India, but it was lovely to read to interested fellow travellers.

coffee-shop afternoon: diary of a blocked poet, part four

2011-02-16T10:54:00.000Z

Coffee-shop afternoon

A reef of cinnamon

floats on the top

of your tall hot chocolate.

My green tea

is still as a pool, curling

Japanese characters

of steam. I hear

the cub cry of a baby,

cradled by her father

as china cups clink,

swung into stacks

by the cheerful waitress

who has striped our table

with a damp cloth.

This moment

of being here which

is what we have; for now,

all we need.

(Published in Obsessed with Pipework Poetry Magazine, 2009, and appears in Centuries of Skin, Ragged Raven, 2010)

Coffee-shop in photo: Coffee Aroma, Lincoln, 'One of the best ten coffee-shops in the UK' (The Guardian)

I knew I wasn't blocked any more, and this was the first of the 'new' poems included subsequently in 'Centuries of Skin'.

These posts are dedicated to my students, who are currently working hard on their poems.

coffee-shop afternoon: diary of a blocked poet, part three

2011-02-10T17:35:00.000Z

Having completed two writing exercises involving a coffee-shop atmosphere, I combined material from both exercises to produce the first draft of a poem:

The coffee-shop on Sunday

A reef of cinnamon

floats on the top

of your tall hot chocolate.

My green tea

still as a pool, curling

Japanese characters

of steam. I hear

the coffee-machine’s

tenacious hiss,

the clink of china cups

hurried into stacks

by the young waitress

who has striped our table

with bleach on a wet cloth.

I hear the cub cry

of a tired baby, cradled

by her father behind us,

in this moment

this is all we need.

The new piece still felt a little like a creative writing exercise. I decided to keep the three-line stanzas as in the second exercise, remove some of the adjectives, and use more conjunctions to link the different images together for more immediacy. To be continued...

coffee-shop afternoon: diary of a blocked poet, part two

2011-02-06T10:19:00.000Z

...The next day, after work, I went to Coffee Shop B, a busy supermarket cafe, open late. Lots of sights, sounds and smells. Here, I tried out another exercise from Natalie Goldberg's 'Writing Down the Bones': a three-line writing exercise. I wrote ten lots of three-line stanzas, gave each one a title so that each stanza had a subject, included an image in each line, and this was the result.

Hot chocolate.

The proud tall mug

with its rift of cinnamon

stands like a lighthouse on the white saucer.

Muffin.

Demolished into crumbs

the brown napkin crumbles

its creases a vain memory of blueberry.

Table.

Round mahogany,

striped with quick bleach

silver leaves etched in the centre.

Green Tea.

Green as a still Japanese pool,

puffs of steam as curled

as a haiku letter.

Scream.

The child cries ‘Mummy’

I hear pushchair wheels

folding out into the roar of traffic.

Teenager.

Dressed all in black

she sips a strawberry shake

enjoying leisure while it lasts.

Bag.

Open in its jute thrift

containing my new glasses

and a curled up magazine.

Pen.

Pink ink scratches on white paper

Shiny silver nib

Only cost £3!

Cloud.

Over Chatsworth House

it threatens rain upon

the white seventies black letters.

Windowsill.

I can see out through the door

the white clean frame

the speckled dry rain on the window.

Here was more material that I could shape into a poem along with the previous day's writing. I was starting to feel less blocked already...to be continued...

coffee-shop afternoon: diary of a blocked poet, part one

2011-02-04T08:23:00.000Z

After 'Safe Passage' was published in 2007, I kept trying to write poems, but wasn't happy with anything I was writing...then, while reading John P. McNamee's Donegal Suite , I was inspired by his 'moment in time' poems and decided to try for one myself. (I came across his poems after I watched the film of his book, Diary of a City Priest, on TV.)

I was also rereading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, one of the books I often return to, and came across her exercise 'I am a friend to...'
So, that Sunday, I visited Coffee Shop A, with Chris. While he was happily working, I started with Natalie's prompt, and wrote as fast as I could:

I am a friend to the gentle dance music with coca cola pouring beats, to C’s new silver laptop with the sensitive keys, with the steam coming out of my green tea in its china cup and saucer, to my cotton beige + gold + mocha + ivory striped scarf soft against my arm, to this pink ink from my cartridge pen, its nib scratching on white sketchbook paper, to the cool air at the back of my neck and my shoulders, to the warmth coming from outside through the open door on this May afternoon, to the coffee machine’s tenacious buzz of hiss and soft steam, to the clink of coffee cups flung into stacking piles by the young waitress, to the cub cry of a tired baby, cradled by her father behind us.

When I read this 'freewrite' back later, I was pleased with some of the images, but the writing wasn't quite at the stage of wanting to be shaped into a poem, so I decided on a Plan B...to be continued...

snapshots, followers, poetry, thanks

2011-01-31T12:06:00.000Z

Thanks to all of you who are following 'my delayed reactions' through Networked Blogs on Facebook and through Google Friend Connect. More classic poems and photos coming up soon, and still to come on 'Poetry Snapshots': Tanner, Sarah James, Juliet Wilson.

Thanks also to the poets who have kindly sent me photos, poems, biographies and links for 'Poetry Snapshots' so far. It's been a pleasure.

poetry snapshots; ken champion

2011-01-24T09:27:00.000Z

Forties Noir

It’s the lighting; a beach hut’s sculpted shadows,

a white face pushing from a darkened porch,

Mitchum in Acapulco heat, slatted light

across his jacket, Greer walking in against the

sun, a Mexican Dietrich strolling a highway,

headlights stroking her back before she becomes

night, the palms, fedoras, wise guys, bars;

the evening park, a tram’s Nighthawks figures,

kids playing floodlit footie round a lamppost,

the hall glow through the fanlight, lincrusta,

dad’s torch searching the cellar for the nail jar,

Aunt Flo upstairs hoping I’ll pencil a seam

down the back of her painted legs while

Uncle Harry’s away, her face under mine,

garish, by the cheap bedside lamp.

A pencilled line simulated real stockings.

Published in MAGMA 46, 2010.

Ken Champion is an internationally published poet whose work has appeared in over a hundred magazines and anthologies, including Rialto, Smiths Knoll, Magma, African American Review and Iodine Poetry Journal. He has two pamphlets, African Time (2002) and Cameo Poly (2004) published by Tall Lighthouse and a full collection, But Black And White Is Better (2008). He has also had fiction published in literary journals in the UK and USA. Ken reads in London and elsewhere and hosts More Poetry at Borough Market. He runs poetry workshops and is Reviews Editor for Tall Lighthouse. A selection of his poems can be found at The Poetry Library and at http://www.kenchampion.org.uk/

Born in London’s east end, Ken lectures in sociology and philosophy, and has worked as a decorator, sign writer, mural painter and commercial artist. He lives in London and has three sons.

centuries of skin january reading

2011-01-17T09:26:00.000Z

I'll be reading from 'Centuries of Skin' at the Word Cafe, Teddington, on Wednesday, January 26.

'These thought provoking poems bring the past and the present refreshingly to life' (Maggie Sawkins, reviewing Centuries of Skin in ArtemisPoetry)

The Word Cafe is a new poetry and music night run by Julie Mullen.
Details of location and times are here.
http://www.meetup.com/The-Word-Cafe/calendar/16033768/

poetry snapshots: frances white

2011-01-10T08:25:00.002Z

Piano Bar Blues

Dizzy summer night

quenched with lager

her eyes dreamy

with piano bar blues

moving aside their empty glasses

his arm brushed hers

low lighting and soft cushions

made her head swim

they slipped away

into the moonlight

music fading

as they sauntered back

under the larch trees

along the water

his hands in his pockets

all the way home.

© Frances White

Published in:
‘AWAY WITH WORDS, An Anthology of Poetry’
(Aeronwy Thomas, Beryl Myers, Annie Taylor, Frances White),
Poetry Monthly Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-906357-01-6

Frances White’s poems and artwork have been published in magazines and anthologies.
Thirty of her poems were published in ‘AWAY WITH WORDS, An Anthology of Poetry’ (Poetry Monthly Press 2007), which she co-authored with the late Aeronwy Thomas.
Her poems have won first prizes in three local competitions and she received a Highly-Commended nomination in the Torbay Open Poetry Competition, 2010.
Frances lives in South West London and has read as a guest poet at poetry venues and festivals in London and Wales. She is working towards her first collection.

poetry p f pages http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/franceswhitepage.html
Second Light Live Members’ Page http://www.secondlightlive.co.uk/members/franceswhite.shtml

pat livingstone's cd reflections

2011-01-07T21:36:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuVDjbk5jME

Pat Livingstone provided the beautiful music for the launch of 'Centuries of Skin' at the Valentines Mansion last April. Listen to a track from Pat's new CD 'Reflections' with lovely 'Iona Stargazing' visuals by David Coleman, Joyce Gunn Carins, and Yvonne Bell, at the McLeod Centre on the Scottish island of Iona.

happy new year, enjoy the slideshow

2010-12-29T11:41:00.003Z

This time last year, I was starting to get excited about 'Centuries of Skin' coming out, not to mention the book launch, which would be part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival. The launch ended up taking place at the seventeenth century Valentines Mansion, and was the most special event that I've ever had (although I never found out what happened to my expenses...).
Many thanks again to all of you who attended to support me that night, and also at my other readings in 2010.
And thank you for following 'my delayed reactions' this year. In 2011 we'll have lots more great Poetry Snapshots, plus photos, poems, and news.

Enjoy this slideshow of blog photos from 2010. Just click 'Refresh' to play it again!
And have a happy New Year.

poetry snapshots: mavis gulliver

2010-12-27T09:28:00.001Z

Breaking Dormancy

Time passed and I forgot

the envelope labelled in your precise hand,

‘Welsh Poppy seeds from my garden…for yours.’

Forgot the fine dust filtering through my fingers,

settling on stubborn soil.

Three years on, the ache of your death

has dulled…a little.

I have learned to speak of you without weeping.

Now you are back, you…and your poppies.

Pendulous buds expanding, shaking out their creases,

opening bright as suns,

spilling yellow petals

seeds

memories.

published in Envoi, Issue 146, 2007

Mavis says: I came to poetry relatively late in life and have Joanna to thank for her excellent constructive criticism on the OCA Course in 2006. I write mainly about nature, landscape, islands, family and memories - linking the different aspects together wherever possible.

restoration

2010-12-22T13:33:00.001Z

York Minster, restored to its old self, now that the recent snow has melted.
I'll be posting a sample of Pat Livingstone's new CD, 'Reflections', soon, but here's a poem I wrote after the launch concert for 'I Saw a Stranger', the second CD that Pat released with her group, 'Oran', in 2002.
http://www.ionabooks.com/1103-1901557812-I-Saw-a-Stranger-CD.html

Restoration

From the pews

we hear the singers

unscroll words

old as parchment,

tongue Gaelic

into English sound.

The cellist’s bow

across each string

rubs embers into warmth

and I feel

my flaking paint glossed,

my scuffed bricks buffed

as though the wind

had stopped whirling its needs

around my island home

and I look up

to see the orange glow

behind the crucifix

on the altar wall.

poetry snapshots: anne stewart

2010-12-13T14:45:00.000Z

Winter Loving

“Let us have winter loving that the heart

May be in peace and ready to partake

Of the slow pleasure spring would wish to hurry

… ” Elizabeth Jennings Winter Love

She lies awake listening to the storm.

It breaks in through open transom lights;

runs riot through the house, a vandal gouging

pristine walls. Bringing the outside in.

She hears the garden’s talk, thin as thorns

scratching glass, alpines clinging for dear life,

plastic chairs sitting themselves down hard.

And you lie close. Boats in safe harbour.

She tries to listen better, strains to hear

the scrape of firs digging in their heels

against the gale, but you snore too loudly,

content with life just lapping at your sides.

Thugs of rain shout and batter at the window

as though they’d come to sort you out. Listen!

Listen to the whale-song of the trees as they

wallow in it. See how they shake their fists.

Anne Stewart

shortlisted in the Frogmore Poetry Competition, 2007 and published in The Frogmore Papers, No. 70, Autumn 2007;

published in Flarestack Poetry anthology, Mr Barton Isn’t Paying, 2009;

included in collection, The Janus Hour, Oversteps Books, 2010 (http://www.overstepsbooks.com/, ISBN 978-1-906856-16-8)

Founder of the poet-showcase site, www.poetrypf.co.uk, Anne Stewart is administrator for Second Light Network and co-edited several issues of ARTEMISpoetry. She was awarded MA(Dist) in Creative Writing from Sheffield Hallam University in 2003 and won the Bridport Prize in 2008. The Janus Hour (Oversteps Books, 2010) is her first collection.

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/ http://www.secondlightlive.co.uk/

http://www.secondlightlive.co.uk/artemis.shtml http://www.overstepsbooks.com/

review of centuries of skin in artemis poetry magazine

2010-12-11T16:14:00.001Z

I admire Maggie Sawkins' poetry, and I'm proud that she has favourably reviewed 'Centuries of Skin' in ARTEMISpoetry magazine. She says:

'These are tales from the border told by an outsider, intent on recording...These thought provoking poems bring the past and present refreshingly to life.'

ARTEMISpoetry magazine

snowbound

2010-12-08T11:00:00.000Z

Spellbound

by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow.

And the storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing dear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

Photo: 'Sunset Field' by Chris Holden

poetry: form and experience and tennyson too

2010-12-07T16:25:00.001Z

What with all the moving house and novel redrafting and tutoring and assessing and visiting London, I haven't had a chance to post about the module that I've been revising and updating for the Open College of the Arts. http://www.oca-uk.com/

'Poetry: Form and Experience' is a Level Two poetry module (60 credits towards a degree). The workbook is illustrated with some wonderful paintings on the theme of writing, including the front cover painting 'Portrait of the poet Velimir Khlebnikov' by Mikhail Larionov.

I've included many interesting internet links, including this one to the Poetry Archive, where Tennyson reads 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in an 1890 recording so crackly that he could have been reading in the battlefield itself:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1570

Shivers down my spine.

poem and photo for the snow

2010-12-02T14:46:00.000Z

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

by Robert Frost

Photo: 'Heslington' by Chris Holden

poem 'the wave' on bolts of silk online

2010-12-01T17:56:00.000Z

http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wave-by-joanna-ezekiel.html

I subscribe to RSS feeds from Bolts of Silk because I enjoy the smell of a new poem in the morning.

poetry snapshots: adrian green

2010-11-30T16:45:00.001Z

Business Breakfast

On a blue September dawn

the tide ebbs under London Bridge.

We walk across – a crowd

alive but hypnotised.

So many left undead

for croissants and a cappuccino.

And in the knowing,

unknowing,

and knowing again

of things we never

thought would matter,

breakfast sages

read our fortunes

in the coffee spoons,

project their fantasies

on office walls.

Later, on the Circle Line,

the salesmen with their laptops

watch a couple sharing sushi

from a plastic box.

Adrian Green

Previously published in Well Versed, poems from the Morning Star (Hearing Eye, ISBN 978-1-905082-42-1)

and Chorus and Coda (Littoral Press, ISBN 978-0-9550926-7-1).

About Adrian Green:
Adrian Green lives overlooking the sea at Southend. A former editor of SOL and reviews editor of Littoral, poems and reviews have appeared in several magazines and anthologies. His current collection, Chorus and Coda (ISBN 978-0955092671), is available from the Littoral Press.
See more at http://www.greenad.co.uk/ or listen at http://www.myspace.com/chorusandcoda

hope is a thing with feathers

2010-11-17T11:43:00.004Z

It would normally be too early for me to post here about a forthcoming publication (my blog isn't called 'delayed reactions' for nothing) but I wanted to make an early mention of 'Soul Feathers'.

It's a poetry anthology on the theme of 'hope', edited by Ronnie Goodyer and Annie Morgan, to be published by Indigo Dreams Press in February 2011. The title is based on a metaphor in one of my favourite Emily Dickinson poems.

This anthology is a bit special because it is a publication produced 'to aid the work of Macmillan Cancer Support'. More information is here: http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/#/soul-feathers/4545520025

Very proud to say that my poem 'She dreams of climbing a mountain' has been accepted and will appear in the anthology alongside poems by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Maya Angelou, Benjamin Zephaniah, Sharon Olds, Seamus Heaney, Moniza Alvi and many other contributors who I'm looking forward to reading.
I'm smiling as I type. And it's all for such a good cause.

poetry snapshots: camilla reeve

2010-11-15T10:45:00.002Z

The Long Journey of Humans

How old was I last night?
In the darkness and quiet
of my own back garden,
I looked up at a sky, deep indigo,
brushed with clouds of grey,
uplit apricot from the city,
and I felt so young.

The long journey of humans
stretched far ahead of me,
full of promise and wonder.
The eyes of unnamed stars
peered down between each cloud,
as strangers, hoped-for friends,
glance from the corner of a rock
and make a new land homely.

Standing there, I heard nothing
but wind riffling my hair,
rain dripping from leaves
the muffled stealth of paws
as a hunting cat passed by.

Now that the everyday
with its well-worn streets
and crowded timetables
is round me, I might be feeling
as old as humanity, as stale.
But I discovered in my mind
and smiling, the little girl
who stood in the dark.

She is still full of wonder
and delight, still looking out
and up and round her
at the enchanting and unknown,
where the return of daylight
has not this time achieved
the death of promise
or the end of mystery.

from collection, "Travels of a Spider",2006. ISBN 978-0-9556770-0-7, published through lulu.com.

Camilla says: Born too late to make sense of the last century I’m focusing on enjoying this one, by novel-writing, poetry and performance, a computer career, back-packing travel and chaotic attempts to transform my garden into a fertile wilderness. I’ve published two poetry collections and a third is underway, details at writing-with-anger-and-love.co.uk

poems in urban district writer and visible breath anthology

2010-11-11T15:23:00.002Z

My poem 'Flying Saucers' is in the relaunched small press magazine 'Urban District Writer', now edited by Bobby Parker. Their blog is here:
http://urbandistrictwriter.blogspot.com/
And I also have a poem, 'Affinity', in the winter anthology from Indigo Dreams, 'Visible Breath'. Details are here:
http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/#/visible-breath/4539214329
So, one poem about a recurring dream involving the Isle of Dogs, where I lived for a while in my early twenties, and one about an imaginary meeting in Twickenham. What will my new location inspire, I wonder?

poetry snapshots: michael wyndham

2010-11-02T20:12:00.007Z

Know Your Enemy

The glitterball orbits the ballroom conjuring a flux
of nylon swing. Her calves twist, her Grable heels kick
out the fear of telegrams from the front line.

Chicago knights and New York zoots strut before
the White City girl like competing matadors; she slides
down a pageant of olive and khaki -

No rations tonight baby!

Blakeys clack-clack, club tie strides, a Brylcreem Moses
parts the dance floor, bringing down the tablets from
the judges' mountain. A tidy finger taps

the swinging shoulder of the GI -

"Strictly ballroom here laddie"

Michael Wyndham
"Know Your Enemy" was first runner-up in the 2006 Frogmore Press poetry prize and was included in the autumn 2006 issue. In June 2008, South Bank poetry magazine published 'Know Your Enemy' alongside other poems themed on London's past.

Michael says: I have been writing and performing poetry since May 2005. This poetic calling came to me while massacring London's insects and vermin during my former day job as a pest controller.

reviews of centuries of skin in purple patch and the journal

2010-10-25T16:38:00.011+01:00

Very pleased this week to read not one, but two favourable reviews of 'Centuries of Skin' in long-running small press poetry magazines 'Purple Patch' and 'The Journal'.

Geoff Stevens, Editor of 'Purple Patch' says: '...this book is mainly about a jewish person showing us the streets of London as she carries her traditions and family history in her last-a-lifetime bag. Absorbing!'

He has also placed it tenth, out of twenty, in the Purple Patch Small Press Best of 2010 List: Best Individual Collection of the Year. I'm looking forward to reading some of the other collections in this list that I haven't already read and enjoyed.

Andrew Taylor, Editor of 'Erbacce' poetry magazine, says in 'The Journal': '...the majority of the poems are very, very good...Ezekiel writes well. These feel like considered pieces of work...Yes, a fine collection and an impressive debut full collection.'

Thank you, editors.

Purple Patch's website:http://www.purplepatchpoetry.co.uk/
The Journal's website:http://www.freewebs.com/thesamsmith/
Erbacce's website: http://www.erbacce.webeden.co.uk/

New blog about my Bollywood great-grandfather

2010-10-20T12:36:00.005+01:00

Articles, news, information about Shalom Bollywood, a photo of the man himself (we only have one photo), links, and poems coming up on my new blog at:
http://josephdavidpenkar.blogspot.com/
We've also got news feeds about 'Bollywood Jews'!

poetry snapshots: gill learner

2010-10-18T10:23:00.013+01:00

A worm updates itself

Never mind the Tree of Knowledge:
I'd sooner get my teeth into a book, or
better still a row - complete works
from long ago, not bleached or sized.
Give me the tender wrap of calves shaved thin,
a volume in a warm damp room, its spine
relaxed in fishy corrugations. I've delved
into the great minds of the past, chewed over
their hypotheses, digested fantasies
and left behind a dust sucked dry of thought.

But things are harder now: I crack
my head on plastic, slip on silicon.
Yet I'll survive - I found a way
to tunnel the soft underside of 0 and 1.

Published January 2009 in Acumen 63.

Gill Learner lives in Reading and began writing poetry in 2001. She loves reading to an audience, has been published widely and was awarded the Poetry Society's Hamish Canham Prize 2008. Her first collection, The agister's experiment, is forthcoming from Two Rivers Press.

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/gilllearnerpage.shtml

mixed race studies

2010-10-07T09:25:00.008+01:00

There is now a short description of 'Centuries of Skin' on this informative website, run by Steve Riley.

http://www.mixedracestudies.org/wordpress/?p=9379

I'm pleased to have my collection featured on this site. Writing about having a mixed/dual heritage is not, as some critics would have it, solely about getting funding or ticking boxes. It's about perceptions, the search for identity, and, perhaps firstly, writing for yourself, to understand more about communities and circumstances that just didn't exist in literature during childhood and adolescence -during mine, anyway. Aren't these reasons why a lot of writers write?
I'm off to look up some of the American poetry collections featured here: I've read and enjoyed all the British ones mentioned.

And happy National Poetry Day.

poetry snapshots: angela france

2010-10-04T09:06:00.007+01:00

Skin-deep

She looks in her mirror,

turns slowly and twists

to see over her shoulder.

She can number the marks,

scars of surgery and childbirth.

She peels back her lips,

admires the close fit

of her gums, her sinuous tongue.

She pulls further back.

She loosens her chin, her ears,

shakes her head back

to slip off her scalp.

The rest is easier: a sharp shrug

to free her shoulders, a stroke

down her upper arms.

Pulling the tips of each finger

in turn, she smiles, thinks of gloves,

Audrey Hepburn. She hulas

her hips clear of cellulite,

points her toes to slide off

dimpled stockings, steps free.

She palms over the perfect dome

of her head, strokes muscles

as they move and stretch,

feels her sculpted cheek.

She stands before her mirror,

watches winks of light reflect

from loops of bowel, counts

her heartbeats, her lungs' billow.

She can't help grinning.

Published in 'Occupation', Ragged Raven Press, 2009.

Angela France has had poems published in many of the leading journals, in the UK and abroad. Her second collection, 'Occupation' is available from Ragged Raven Press.

Angela is features editor of Iota and an editor of ezine The Shit Creek Review. She also runs a monthly poetry cafe, 'Buzzwords'.

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/angelafrancepage.html

http://angelafrance.blogspot.com/

cinnamon press novel award 2010

2010-10-01T17:48:00.003+01:00

I'm very pleased indeed to have been placed on the 'short longlist' in this competition - in fact, in the final ten (congratulations to the five finalists).

Until recently, I worked as a children's librarian, and borrowed a lot of young adult novels by authors such as David Almond, Marcus Sedgwick, and Pauline Fisk. Eventually, I decided to try writing one of my own. It's about a boy, a girl, and a house, but that's all I'm going to say for now, as I'm still redrafting...
...but, there are no vampires or wizards involved.

centuries of skin is stocked in all good bookshops...

2010-09-25T13:23:00.010+01:00

in Twickenham, Finchley, and Woodford Green.

Twickenham: at Langton's Bookshop.
http://langtonsbookshop.wordpress.com/
I got lots of writing done there while drinking mochas in their cafe, which was also the launch venue for the SW London launch of 'Centuries of Skin'. The next event will be reading by a future Poetry Snapshots featured poet, Camilla Reeve. There's a good local books section (with local postcards) and a local poets section, with a brief staff review of 'Centuries of Skin', which was a nice surprise.

Finchley: at Joseph's Bookstore.
http://josephsbookstore.com/
This bookstore has every Jewish book that you might ever need. I bought a copy of Edna Fernandes's 'The Last Jews of Kerala' there. I will read it when I can get it back from my dad ;)

Woodford Green: at The Village Bookshop.
http://www.thevillagebookshop.co.uk/5.html
This bookshop is five minutes' walk from my old school, Woodford County High, and I would have been in this shop every lunchtime had it been open when I was at school. Big selection of children's books, too.

poetry snapshots: anne welsh

2010-09-20T22:07:00.012+01:00

Stigmata
after Annette Messager's Story of Dresses

I am corseted in seal-bone to fit into this dress of ugly taffeta.
Inside my glass coffin I smell his skin beneath my fingernails,
the salt of my own body, the paint from the wall on which I hang.

It is cold here in the gallery, colder than the East Coast Scottish winter
and I am visible but not visible like hoarfrost on a morning fresh with snow.
You sound out the word in French that he pinned upon me:

P-R-O-M-E-S-S-E

and something in your harsh southern vowels breaks both glass and spell.
A slow bleed falls from my right wrist onto the paper, blotting out
his promissory note.

I hold my hand out to you, not knowing if you'll take it;

if this twin ache in my ribcage is from twenty years' seal-bone-too-tight-binding
or something ice inside it that your star-hard voice may also melt or shatter.

Photo: Naomi Woddis http://www.flickr.com/photos/naomiwoddis/collections/72157622849627811/

Anne Welsh’s work has appeared in journals including Poetry News, Agenda Broadsheet and English and is forthcoming on http://www.tate.org.uk

as part of its Bigger Picture project and in the Tate Poetry from Art anthology (launch event 25/09/2010 Tate Modern). She posts weekly writing prompts at http://annewelsh.tumblr.com

and blogs at http://annewelsh.wordpress.com

About the publication:

Stigmata was first published in Seeking Refuge, edited by Jan Fortune-Wood (Cinnamon Press, 2010), in support of the London Cold Weather Shelters. This is one of a series of anthologies to grow out of Ruth O'Callaghan's events at Lumen and Camden which bring together well-known poets and those just starting out.

poetry snapshots: dominic james

2010-09-06T13:20:00.005+01:00

Afternoon Song

You there in your old, cold country

Do you think of me

As a bay in North Sicily,

Or rumpled bedroom flooded with heat and light

(From which you cannot keep out

a small cry in the night)

Hot despite all slats and flats of your

Shuttered North doors that can hardly withdraw

All the heat of the day,

At least you can park all your secrets in shade

Until evening takes some heat from your blushes,

Your burns and the drops of your foolish, salt tears

first published online Sentinel Literary Quarterly (January 2010 issue)

http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/slq/3.2/poetry/dominic-james.htm

Dominic James, approaching middle age, William Yeats and holidays with caution, has been reading with the Bright Scarves poets in Richmond for two years. A prizewinning essayist and short story writer these days he says it's all poetry. Contactable on djames@daemonbook.co.uk

three pieces of good news

2010-09-04T19:31:00.005+01:00

1. I am delighted to have six poems from 'Centuries of Skin' up at Michelle McGrane's popular Peony Moon blog site:
http://peonymoon.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/joanna-ezekiels-centuries-of-skin/
I'm in good company, with well known poets such as Todd Swift and Jacqueline Saphra also featured in the past month, among a selection of poets from all over the world. I was also chuffed to read a kind comment about the poems.
2. My poem 'Postcards from Sheringham: Part II' has been published in Reach Poetry 144 (Part I appeared in Reach 142).
3. Nothing to do with poetry (although a Frank O'Hara poem was read and discussed in the second series) but Mad Men is back, Wednesdays, 10pm, BBC4.

more poetry snapshots

2010-08-25T10:02:00.007+01:00

These poets will also be featured in the new 'Poetry Snapshots' series, between now and January 2011: Camilla Reeve, Adrian Green, Anne Stewart, Mavis Gulliver, Frances White, and Chris Kinsey.
Featured poets are by invitation only for now; there are many more of you that I would like to invite, and I will do so next year.

messages in bottles

2010-08-19T10:00:00.003+01:00

This week I've been helping Stephen Brown to judge the White Leaf Press poetry book competition finalists. It's exciting to read good poetry that is making its way out into the world.

It was also exciting to read Madalina Mot's translation of my poem 'The night before your best man's speech' in the May 2010 edition of Timpul journal. Many thanks to Anne Stewart at poetry pf for this initiative.

poetry snapshots soon

2010-08-12T16:20:00.004+01:00

I'm delighted to announce a new fortnightly featured poets series, 'Poetry Snapshots' on this blog. We'll be kicking off on Monday, September 6 with Dominic James, to be followed by Anne Welsh, Angela France, Gill Learner, and Michael Wyndham. Proud to be publishing these poets on delayed reactions -and there'll be more to come.

even more updates

2010-08-02T15:14:00.010+01:00

Two more updates: part one of my poem 'Postcards from Sheringham' was published in Reach, issue 142, and has since received a couple of honourable mentions in the letters page of the following issue.

The first review of 'Centuries of Skin' has appeared, in Jewish Renaissance Magazine, July 2010 issue, by fellow poet and OCA tutor Liz Cashdan. I was especially happy to read the end of Liz's review:

'The poem (She dreams of climbing a mountain) ends with her 'need to be giddy at high altitude' and the possiblility of being giddy at high altitudes is perhaps what all readers hope good poetry will offer them. Ezekiel's poetry nearly always manages to do this.'

More updates on readings, plus news of a featured poets series on this blog, soon. Meanwhile, my composer friend Pat Livingstone is working hard on the music for our poetry and music podcast, and you might even be treated to a video clip of me reading from 'Centuries of Skin' at Langton's Bookshop.

bright pebbles and other updates

2010-07-27T09:03:00.008+01:00

Earlier this year, I was delighted to have my 'Gannets on Noss' poem chosen to appear in a new Shetland anthology of prose and poetry, Bright Pebbles, edited by Mary Blance and Laureen Johnson. I wrote 'Gannets on Noss' after a wonderful holiday in the Shetland Islands, and it's since been published in the New Shetlander, my pamphlet Safe Passage, and Centuries of Skin (as part of a 'A Shetland Diary' sequence of poems).
Bright Pebbles is published by the Shetland Times, for the Shetland Hamefarin - an event where Shetlanders from all over the world converge on their home islands. The book is of beautiful quality, with my poem appearing next to a stunning full page colour photo of gannets. There's also a CD of some of the poems and prose, which I'm looking forward to listening to very soon.
Gannets on Noss was also mentioned in a review of the book in the Shetland Times, which makes me feel even more privileged to have a poem in this special anthology. I was very sorry to miss the launch in the Shetland Islands. Wouldn't that have been something.
http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/shop/product.php?productid=167&cat=23&page=1

Talking of special anthologies, I was lucky enough to read at the launch of Seeking Refuge by Cinnamon Press, at Lumen Church. My poem 'On Emerging' appears in the anthology, which is full of good poems, including poems by Anne Welsh, Kaye Lee, Shanta Everington, Gill Learner, and Adele Ward.
The profits from this anthology go towards the London Cold Weather shelters. Poet Ruth O'Callaghan works tirelessly to run poetry events at Camden and Lumen churches - after the anthology launch reading, the tables and chairs were cleared away for the church to be used as a homeless shelter.
Come to a Camden or Lumen event this year, read a poem and leave it for consideration for the next anthology. All profits from the events go towards the homeless shelters, too, so you can have that second glass of wine.
All events are listed on the blog below, and details of how to buy Seeking Refuge are in the publications list on the right.
http://camdenlumen.wordpress.com/

updates

2010-07-19T11:42:00.007+01:00

Quite a lot's been happening since 'Centuries of Skin' came out.
Last week, I held a second launch at Langton's Bookshop. Thank you to Mark, who was a great host, and to everyone who came along. The mix of people was special; as well as Chris and the Hands-On poets, others had already read 'Centuries of Skin' or had heard me read and came back for more, and some of you I hadn't met, but seemed to enjoy the reading and the evening. Do keep in touch.

Many thanks to the Hands On Richmond Poetry workshop poets who could make it and who read one of their own poems to help me celebrate the publication of my book. Here we all are, above: l-r from back, Dominic James, Quentin Cowdry, Elizabeth Bell, Frances White, Judith Lawton. Front: Peter Pegnall, me.
I also liked this photo of me pretending to read from 'Centuries of Skin'. I was very lucky to have Steve White taking these photos and also filming the event. Langton's Bookshop Cafe was a comfortable and intimate venue for a poetry reading, with lovely staff too, what more could you ask for.
Publication and review updates to follow soon, plus more news on a new 'poet of the fortnight' feature.

photos from the launch

2010-06-01T22:27:00.013+01:00

Juli Jeana

Tim Cunningham

Ken Champion

Anne Welsh

Adrian Green

Shanta Everington

Christopher James

Me!

Bob Mee, poet and Ragged Raven Press publisher

Shermain Philip, festival organiser and host.

Here are a few photos from the Redbridge Book and Media Festival launch of 'Centuries of Skin' in the Drawing Room at Valentines Mansion on April 25, 2010. More photos soon.

Many thanks to Jenny Platt who worked very hard at taking the photos on the night and then editing and uploading them all, not to mention burning a great many of them to CD for me. She is a talented photographer.

centuries of skin, and other things

2010-05-11T15:24:00.004+01:00

I enjoyed reading at the Chipping Campden Festival 'In the Margins' last Thursday, with other Ragged Raven poets including publisher Bob Mee. It was organised by my fellow RR poet Angela France - thanks, Angela.

I've been asked about the photos from the launch. They will be a few more weeks yet, as we have a lot to go through. They will be worth the wait.

And I've also been asked to say something about Centuries of Skin on this blog, as there is a lot here about the launch, but less about the book.

The back cover of the book says, 'This first full collection by Joanna Ezekiel follows her pamphlets, A Braid of Words (Poetry Monthly Press) and Safe Passage (White Leaf Press). She was also published in Ragged Raven's Writing on Water and The world is made of glass, the Cinnamon Press charity anthology, Seeking Refuge (the launch of which I'm attending tonight) and the Dancing with Delsie anthology from Leaf Books. Joanna has an MA in Creative Writing and Personal Development from Sussex University.'

The earliest published poem in the book was Overheard at Synagogue, written after I attended an Arvon Foundation course back in 1998. The most recent poem was Forty minutes to London, workshopped at a Poetry School tutorial in January. In between, many of the poems were published in magazines like iota and Obsessed with Pipework. A few were placed in competitions - the Bridport Prize, the Writer's Inc. Writer-of the Year award. I wrote several of the poems while studying with the Open College of the Arts, and more for my MA dissertation.
But many others were written in cafes after work, on buses and trains, and while making soup (I don't know what it is about making soup that is so productive for me).

What helped me to write these poems: attending workshops, writing and reading something every day, whether several pages or one line, reading lots of books on creative writing and creativity, doing those exercises, plus returning to old journals and raw pieces from workshops. Attending poetry readings which helped me to think about the way poems are listened to.
Reading my own poems at open mikes. Subscribing to poetry magazines, joining the Poetry Library, borrowing contemporary poetry from local libraries. Long walks and following my other interests (when time). And recently, teaching creative writing. All of which I hope to keep doing.

Getting to the page is never a solitary process for me. I've thanked my supportive partner, workshop leaders, poetry events organisers, creative writing authors, and publishers in my acknowledgements for Centuries of Skin. And now I am thanking Angela and the other Ragged Raven poets for their support and poems.

When Centuries of Skin came out, I wrote in my journal:
Twelve years of poems, like someone pulling out a thread from your heart, from all those long years, and placing it on the page. Twelve years, a whole circle on the clock, XII. And I have survived this flood, I am writing poems of small survivals. Time to keep on keeping on. Who said that? Somebody there before me.

filming shalom bollywood

2010-05-05T19:35:00.005+01:00

As well as all the excitement of 'Centuries of Skin' coming out, I've also been involved in a very interesting project.
I've been interviewed and have read a poem for a documentary film, 'Shalom Bollywood'. Many of India's early Bollywood pioneers and stars were Indian Jews, a part of Jewish and Indian heritage that not many people know about.
The documentary is being made by Danny Ben-Moshe, a filmmaker and academic, for his film company Identity Films. http://www.identity-films.com/about.html He has been flying all over the world, interviewing descendants of these Bollywood Jews.

This is a link to a clip of the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO03CbwZHhw

I was delighted to have been invited to talk about my great-grandfather's achievements for the film, especially 'Alam Ara' and am really looking forward to seeing it. Thanks, Danny, and good luck with the funding.

I will put more info on this blog about release dates, etc, nearer the time.

This is the poem I read, for my great-grandfather Joseph David Penkar, a Bollywood scriptwriter, director, producer, songwriter, and also playwright.

For Joseph David

This book-lined room is backdrop
for your modest gaze. Photographed
without your furry Russian hat- Dad remembers
how you wore it through the heat and dust.
Did you take it off, close the shutters
at mid-day to write, could you hear

your audience applaud from market stalls,
rickshaws, your mind flickering
past the reels of languages you spoke,
the silhouettes of stories, waves of ragaas?
You wrote as if the silver screen
was big enough to hold a world

where your descendants would scatter -
England, Ahmedabad, Israel, Canada.

the launch of 'Centuries of Skin'

2010-04-27T10:18:00.011+01:00

There were about 50 of us in total. Friends, family, friends of family, fellow poets, partners, older children, local writers and one of my lovely students all came along to the Valentines Mansion on Sunday to help me celebrate the launch of 'Centuries of Skin' as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival 2010.

I was very lucky to have my launch in the Drawing Room of the 17th century Valentines Mansion in Gantshill. It was a beautiful venue, with its trailing vine wallpaper, Juliet balcony, and Queen Anne perspex chairs.

I wore my tried and tested grey dress, and read from 'Centuries of Skin' for twenty minutes. Then I enjoyed all the poems from the special guest readers.

It didn't rain, the cava and apple juice flowed, and although the event itself finished at 6.45, many of us stayed on till 8.

Thank you to everyone who came along, and special thanks to Chris, to Pat Livingstone who provided the wonderful music inspired by the island of Iona, to photographer Jen who is now going through dozens of photos, to Bob Mee from Ragged Raven Press for his introduction, poem and book table, to my special guest readers Christopher James, Shanta Everington, Adrian Green, Tim Cunningham, Ken Champion, Juli Jeana, and Anne Welsh, and to Shermain at Redbridge Council who worked so hard and was a great host.

My cousin Anne called it 'glorious'. Yes, I think it was.

Five days to go...

2010-04-20T13:29:00.002+01:00

before the launch of 'Centuries of Skin'.

Doors open at 5.30, and it all starts at 6pm.

and they're here...

2010-04-13T19:37:00.000+01:00