11 posts tagged “poetry”
Sometimes the two come together -
In October I was down in Coventry, attending the launch of Pete Chamber's new book on Coventry Music and visiting my family. While there I did some research in the Coventry Archives, looking up the files on the Coventry Arts Umbrella Club which i was involved with in my late teenage age years, organising band nights and hanging out there. In the early sixties Phillip Larkin had an essay published in Umbrella magazine - Not the Places Fault (Explaining his poem which seemed to be putting his birth place down). Members of the Two Tone bands had played in bands there or practised. It has a fascinating history and the place that got me started on a lot of the arts things I do.
So it was a surprise to find a poem called A Drive To Saltburn in the Umbrella Magazine. I lived in Saltburn in the late 80's and taught a creative writing class there for over 10 years.(see the article on Pat Brown). So of course I had to jot the poem down. Some of the Saltburn writers group will be interested in this poem I imagine.
A DRIVE TO SALTBURN - by Gianni Zambardi
Published in Umbrella Magazine Vol 2 - 1961 No 7
(The magazine of the Coventry Arts Umbrella Club)
County of coves, osiers, red banks
Threaded by switchback roads, curling
into sandy-shelves, over ridge, rocks, cliffs,
stabbed by a criss-crossed shafthead -
Distant tips of gouged iron-earth-ranks
of miners homes, smoke wisps fluttering.
In an inshore wind, staunched by church towers
Black, time-muffled stone under the sky's tread
We feed our eyes, speed for a snatched hour
Break the customary formality of daily
Dying in regular doses, to thrill along.
Past pink pubs, wash the sour
sluggishness form our steps; pick up wet briny
seaweed, and learn a salty land's song.
Gianni Zambardi 1961 -
Travel writer BA King's College London,
Now (1961 that is!) Living in Finsbury. Written two novels Time to Go and Me and My Friend. He also published his poetry in the sixties.
Vox is no ordinary blog - there's all kinds of talent here, musical, poetic, photographic and more.
I just want to share with you a few poetic voices that have startled me with their fire, vividness and originality.
First off is Nkiru - A Life Less Origami - her lines are seismic -
Examples -
"Your mouth speaking in rivers"
"Let me bathe in your storm"
"Read the brail beneath your skin
with fingers that have clamed monsons"
and there's more and even better. But don't take my word for it - go visit her site and read them for yourself. There's some startling originality and inventiveness in her sensitive and often sensuous work.
Another voice - one well experienced and accomplished is Althea Romeo-Mark
Althea was born in Antigua, teaches in Switzerland and is very well published.
Some examples of lines -
"In church the Holy Ghost
takes her dancing up and down the aisles
to beats that rival nightclubs"
"Her hair, a neglected garden"
"below the swelling River Rhine. brown after three days of rain"
...........................................
"i will battle my ego, wound it, defeat it
make it retreat into darkness"
"for we've spiritually conceived
this gorgeous lovechild
in hendrix's electric lady land
where femininity dances
freely, provocatively"
THREE POETS, A FILM MAKER / PHOTOGRAPHER AND A WHITE HORSE
PHOTOS AND VIDEO BY TONY WHITTLE
Jingling Geordie Poet - Keith Armstrong was passing on the train between York and Newcastle when he noticed the
The White Horse of Kilburn is not prehistoric like the other's around the country but the brainchild of John Hodgeson, the local schoolmaster who wanted to create Yorkshire's own White Horse. It is one of Yorkshire's best known landmarks and on a clear day is visible for over 30 miles. The horse measures 314 feet long (96m) by 228 feet (70M) high the eye is large enough for 24 people to sit on it. Above the landmark is the Suttonbank Glider station on the site of an ironstone fortress. The White Horse was camouflaged during the war years to prevent enemy aircraft using it to confirm their positions.
On Monday 10th Sept. Keith invited me to join him on the project and also Tony Morris - a Yorkshire folk singer and poet and resident of York Radio's folk programme. Keith's Newcastle friend, musician and photographer Tony Whittle did the filming and photography. We met up in Thirsk, despite Keith's train being cancelled, and taxied out to the Forrester's arms where we met up with Tony Morris. After a quick refreshment and visit to the Vistor's centre, Tony drove our motley crew up to car park below the White Horse. Tony had used his forsight and checked the location out before picking us up. "No good filming on the White Horse" he said "as the camera won't see the horse - just a white background. Best film from the car park below with the horse above us". It was good advice. We hadn't realised how noisy it would be in the middle of nowhere! The sound of Gliders taking off and landing; jets zooming across the hills just as we started filming (it actually fitted in with one poem!); tourists driving up in cars; crows (there is one on the video as Keith starts his poems) and of course wind (not personal wind that is!!).
As we began spouting our quickly-got-together-odes, along with improvised music, bemused picnicers looked on at the surreal sight! Tony had brough a car load of obscure folk instruments including a guitar in Open D tuning and a lyre (which I dared to play through Keith's poem.) I'd never played one before but the improvisation seemed to work - we only did one take of each poem for the video and then I played the guitar through one of Tony's pieces (although this is on the original and longer video that wouldn't fit on Youtube.) There are poems and songs by Tony Morris on this vid and a poem each by Keith and myself. I wasn't too inspired by the White Horse but it was fun and interesting making the video.
Keith has arranged for the full set of poems (including some classic poems on White Horses) and the photographs and the video will become a touring the North Yorkshire libraries and arts cnetre with a couple of performances (including one in December at the Writers Cafe). They will also be a book (pending Keith finding the funding). All in all it's a contribution to the Anniversary celebrations of the White Horse of Kildale.
Below are some of the poems -
Flying out of John Hodgson’s brilliant mind,
inspired by Harrison Weir’s artistic pen,
it took Tom Taylor to land you here
in the ancient limestone
of wind-mocked Roulston Scar Cliff.
Thirty two laboured to craft you,
driven by the very Soul of Creation.
They gave you the gift of witness from this hill
and you have seen an awful lot
and are not left alone.
Your fine legs are pinned
to the side of Yorkshire
and these Tykes have mounted and whitewashed you,
drawn on you out of loneliness,
abused
and treasured you.
The rough days have flitted across your face
and the sun caressed your back.
Lovers have tried you on for size
and the skies have opened over you.
What wars, what landscaped wounds,
have passed you by.
Soldiers of God have marched on below you:
to stop your great heart hurting,
they hid you from the Nazis,
covered up your hail- lashed feelings.
Still, we will look after you,
knowing that you live on for future boys and girls
while we turn to rubble in Kilburn churchyard,
our eyes burn out,
our pulsing hearts close.
White Horse,
White Days
and Nights,
White Yorkshire Rose
in a colourful world:
this great steed belongs to all the Universe.
I do believe that
John saw that.
And we will continue
to feed this Horse’s lovely spirit
and, through its grace,
grow beautiful
ourselves.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
TALES OF THE WHITE HORSE OF KILBURN
From the Forrester’s Arms
With it’s galloping ales
I swear I saw a White Horse
stagger
Past Ragged Way and Little Acre
And come to rest
Upon the scar
Where gliders sneak and hover.
The horse with half a tail
And belly full of Black Sheep ale
Lay white among the grass
And counted every train that passed
Until it fell fast asleep
And dreamed White Horses of the past.
It dreamed of GK Chesterton
With Alfred and his ‘Visions of the King’
And placed their tale in the White Horse Vale
Where chiefs tanked up
With White Horse Ale.
And told their brave knight tales.
But me I came by plane
To Gatwick and then by train
Counting stations on the way
Alighting soon at Thirsk
taxicab to Kilburn
where I quenched a raging thirst.
From the cottage where I board
I swear I saw a knight with sword
Leap on the horse’s back
And gallop towards the railway track.
They spun around the Devil’s Leap
While villagers ran after them
In their sleep
And farmers chased them in a Jeep.
Next morning at English Breakfast
It was on the News at 7
Kilburn’s White Horse had made it down to Devon.
Horse were born to roam
They can’t be fixed in clay or stone
They are mobile like your phone
With souls that can’t be owned.
Now White Horses own the farms
And drink at night in the Forester’s Arms
And tell strange tales of human kind
I guess it helps them to unwind!
By Trev Teasdel
I'd taken a break from the literary and music scenes while the kids were young and was going to relaunch with a new poetry magazine for Teesside - Streetpoems (named after a 70's Birmingham Magazine I had an association with years back and still admired). I produced the first issue but lack of funds delayed it. However contacting people for material led to me being asked to help Paul Williams lauch the Writers Cafe. I done similar things before so he wanted my help and things really took off for the Writers Cafe and the mag idea was left behind. However there was some good stuff inthe first issue so I'll put it on her and hopefully it will enjoy a wider audience!
BLAKEY RIDGE
Through the canopy of cloud
Filter fine drizzle cools a warm cheek
And glistens the dull tarmac.
Sepulchre grey mists
Form into clinging shrouds
Hushing the rising wind which wails like
A quartet of haunted flutes.
Sheep meekly cluster
Like plump oatmeal dumplings
Whilst a canvas of Autumn shades
Seek to embellish
The hard nakedness of the horizon.
Scarred Ralph’s cross
Weeps forgiveness to the vandal.
Jean Cumbor
WINTER GRANDEUR
Peeks stand isolated and pristine
Against the skies of steel
Starched crystals
Form a dusting of icing sugar
On the mountains.
Slivery paths
Snake their way
Towards the horizon and beyond
Rushing icy water
Tumbles down into the gouged earth
Its spray coating
The overhanging trees
Turning the fringes of grass
Into organ pipes.
Landscapes cloaked
With a mantle of patience
Rough edges smoothed
By time and snows.
Jean Cumbor (Gt. Ayton)
A WOMAN WATCHES FROM A WOOD
Nor the dipper-bird in its diving
Beneath the viaduct, by the waterfall;
Nor the force of the river in its driving
Towards the sea and the sea’s call,
Nor the lilac that bends in the breeze
Farther down at Rushpool Hall;
Not the squirrel that skips in the trees
Or the hedgehog in its prickly ball
Knows the heart of the watchful girl
Dives, drives, bends, skips and also curls.
Mark Beevers (Saltburn)
THE NEW GHOSTS
By field, forest, seacliff, scarp and moor,
Many a small track and bridal path
Tied together like any old bits of string.
We walk the thread of the Cleveland Way,
In a wild weather company of monks,
Drovers, merchants, pilgrims, panniermen,
And now, since sections are newly flagged
With floorstones fetched from old Bradford Mills
The children who trod them call to each other
Through the clattering storm of the looms.
John Brelstaff (Guisborough)
Light Our Darkness
Black skeletons of trees and roofs,
A single early eastern beam:
Sun slits the mist to slice downpouring rain -
A shaft that breaks the block of black-walled sky,
Received, restores a summer blaze to autumn’s faded leaves,
Enlivens old stone houses’ golden lichen crusts;
A jet of light imprisoned—escaped, -
Rekindles burnt out cinders’ glow;
A force from curtains emergent, power transmits
Transmuting threat to hope in the ambient black;
Light burst from darkness there,
Here darkness yields to light;
A moment’s promise of ultimate evergreen
In the eternal grey of the ephemeral;
And I at the centre, between good and evil,
Conscious of this unforgettable, perhaps repeatable instant,
See, in a flash of disclosure, a revelation
Of truth, of options before us.
Margaret Mawston
November Calm
I walked where autumn’s rarity held sway -
That bliss emerged from gale, fog, frost and rain:
Soft sunshine still soaking passive fields.
The calm that filled the place passed into me.
Long simple lines of moorland ‘gainst the sky
Quelled inner turbulence like oil on heavy sea:
A lakeside image roused itself in mind -
Smooth surface spreading stress-reliving balm.
Margaret Mawston (Gt. Ayton)
A Harder Harvest - Poem and Photo by Terry Lawson - Staithes
An open palmed autumn, fruit late on the bough,
Snaps shut with a freezing North Wester;
Tight fisted winter’s hammering now,
Any wind barriers are uselessly down.
‘Bad weather birds’ shriek red legged in the beck,
Black backed ‘gulls scrap the others for gut;
People look bulky and hurried again,
Chimneys belch smoke and black soot.
The once many hued leaves are a blackened mat now
Thickening the forest floor,
The evergreen Ivy’s still throttling dead trunks
And the brambles just a tangle under foot
But baited lines are on
fishermen’s heads again,
Mussel shell again carpets the beck,
For winter cod’s grazing close again,
And the cobles steam out with the hook.
Poem
& Photo by Terry Lawson (Staithes)
Co-editor with Trevor of OUTLET MAGAZINE
JUNKMAIL
There’s a rainforest in my front porch
Not the kind you’d expect at all
Not trees endowed with greenery
And spiralled branches standing tall.
Not misty, swirling clouds of rain
Shedding dew on the highest trees.
Not mating calls from exotic birds
Oh no! it’s none of these.
Just an accumulation of coloured trash
Lying on my carpeted floor
A mass of unnecessary junk
Comes clattering through my front door.
Plethoric words on paper and card
Superfluous to my daily needs
Jump out in letters big and bold
Demands I do not wish to read.
I’d rather see the tall trees growing
Not strewn upon my front door mat
Chewed and torn by the dog
Ending in litter used by the cat.
Sara Newby (Darlington)
LIFE IS A RIVER
Life is a river
The font of spring its birth.
Bubbling forth, tumbling,
Murmuring, falling, bobbling,
Finding its own level.
The strong youthful stream
Gathers strength, cutting
Forcefully in its youth.
The river cuts ravines
Against the contours of conformity.
Racing to the martial
Falls of war, thundering
As in war, it falls
To the peaceful pool
Of love and peace
From where it gathers grace and width,
Now fertile, strong, wide,
It graces the great plain
Now crossed by bridges wide.
On towards the Solent
Of the Seven the Seven Seas,
Veiled in mysterious mists
The river now is not but one with the sea.
Returns in rain again
To fertile mountains green.
Again in life the river
Springs continuously.
Life is not your but a river
Tim Lofthouse (Redcar)
(Reprinted from In Our Write Minds - booklet produced by Trev Teasdel from his Leed University Special Needs Creative Writing Class 1993.
Entry to all events is FREE but booking is advised as space is limited. Full
Festival Programme includes -
From Michael Grays Song and Dance Man 111 Chpt 15
"Blind Willie McTell is no roaring primitive and no Robert Johnsonesque devil-dealing womaniser. He didn't lose his sight in a jook-joint brawl, or hopping a frieght train. He didn't escape into music from behind a mule plow in the Delta. He didn't die violently or young. Instead, blind from birth but never behaving as if this were a handicap, this intelligent, articulate man became an adept professional singer and 12 string guitar player who travelled widely and talked his way into an array of recording sessions. he never achieved a hit record, but he became, as alive performer and a man, one of the most widely known and well loved figures in and around Georgia.."
| Blind Willie McTell - Bob Dylan Seen the arrow on the doorpost Saying, "This land is condemned All the way from New Orleans To Jerusalem." I traveled through East Texas Where many martyrs fell And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell Well, I heard the hoot owl singing As they were taking down the tents The stars above the barren trees Were his only audience Them charcoal gypsy maidens Can strut their feathers well But nobody can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell See them big plantations burning Hear the cracking of the whips Smell that sweet magnolia blooming (And) see the ghosts of slavery ships I can hear them tribes a-moaning (I can) hear the undertaker's bell (Yeah), nobody can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell There's a woman by the river With some fine young handsome man He's dressed up like a squire Bootlegged whiskey in his hand There's a chain gang on the highway I can hear them rebels yell And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell Well, God is in heaven And we all want what's his But power and greed and corruptible seed Seem to be all that there is I'm gazing out the window Of the St. James Hotel And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell  | ||
Copyright © 1983 Special Rider Music | ||
Mudfog is the old name for Middlesbrough. Mudfog Press was launched at the second Write Around Festival we
Mudfog's latest launch is from John Harrision (who I first met at the formation of the Teesside Writers Workshop in 1986). John has been well published locally by Mudfog, Write Around and Teesside Writers Workshop and has been a long standing member of the Brotton Writers Group.
Of Shut Down Fortnight (£3. 50) (Available from Mudfog) Poet / Tutor and Teesside Writing Activist Bob Beagrie writes: -
"These unadorned, understated poems move effortlessly between inner and outer landscapes, pinpointing moments of crisis, conflict, sadness, resignation and hope with sardonic wit and a real eye for detail. They shine with the same resolute authenticity you find in the poems of Raymond Carver and Fred Voss."
John Harrison is a not-quite-ancient-mariner. A curmudgeonly bard of the East Cleveland bus-stops. His poems hold u with inescapable roadside meditations on the job, the sack, the kids, what they get up to, relationships that fizzle out. Follow him through eighteen months of work, unemployment, Buddhism and Boulby Pot Ash Mine and you'll see the world with his 'glittering eye'.
Born 1950 and raised in Leeds, John Harrison has lived for over 20 years in the village of Skelton, near Saltburn. 2001
Here is a poem as a taster -
With Shoppers and Narcotics Enthusiasts
The rain's set in.
December. It gets dark before you know it.
Why I should think to come down to Middlesbrough -
What I cam here to get away from...
I queue for the bus. The women in front
has dyed her hair red - looks good, Dark Burgundy.
Eight bags of shopping sit at her feet
training in obedience.
I try to get her talking but no joy.
Our bus sets off. We just want to get back
to our shabby, over-familiar places.
So black out there.
I can't tell where we are.
I have a headache, slightly nauseous.
Everything about me is slight.
One lad's bragging about his prison time -
a house in Carlin Howe sells crack cocaine.
Reality? No thanks!
I keep nodding off. Next time I blink
I'll be locked in the bus garage far end of Loftus.
The lads would no doubt wait outside,
hushed to hear my three-part Christmas message -
Peace
Dharma is the truth
Some dodgy people live round here.
John Harrison 2007
Untamed Words (Click to visit website) is looking for contributions of poems,
Send your material
Open to anything (for consideration). While the magazine is open minded
Ist issue will be uploaded June 15th and archived the following month with the new work being uploaded. So get sending in your contributions. If your doesn't make it this time - keep trying. Send in work that you think is good work and important to your practice as a writer / artist and that you think would appeal to a wider audience. ie that it entertains, makes people think, experiments, or is evocative (given that people are asking for guidelines). Best advice is 'REACH INTO YOUR SOUL AND PULL OUT A GEM'.
Posted by Trevor -
I met Dominic Windram at the ARC (Stockton's Arts Centre) in 2004 when we started the Writers's Cafe (now based
Two Poems from Artificial Eden by Dominic Windram (Here is the cover of Dom's 2nd Book The Season Cycle as well - Covers designed by Trev Teasdel)
A Counterfeit kind of love
Quick fix culture:
Terrified to face itself;
Terrified to discover
An empty shell.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Love is reduced to animal lust.
Love is now just an exchange of fluids;
Love is now just a fashion accessory.
It's about what's compatible, (seriously)
Between well matched sets of personality packages
Where is the love that is real in space and time?
And yet which transcends space and time.
Which is fully conscious of itself,
And longs to embrace the divine.
We can only regret our failure to achieve.
That which the mystics claim is both real and transcendent;
That which is within our reach; within our grasp.
Some cannot regret as they know no other;
They eat, and sleep and go to work and fall in love or lust;
And engage in a range of leisure pursuits.
And live their lives within a narrow frame of reference
Because they know no other.
Quick fix culture;
Cold and numb,
Born of frustration,
Built
for fun.
The Pleasure Principle -(Addiction Theme)
Quick fix culture - born of sensation.
We're perched headlong on the fast lane
To burn out leading to boredom.
The desolate spaces within each of us,
Will not be filled, refreshed or healed by
The relentless pursuit of one night stands.
Prozac prescribed to millions of persons;
To numb the pain of existence,
But it never heals the inner kingdom.
Just scratches the outer surface
Of the ravaged ego's deadly
Hydra like symptoms.
All our lives we seem to move.
Back and forth from dark to light;
From light to darkness;
From the cradle to the grave,
We are the eternal seekers;
Expectant and self serving,
But the search for new sensation
Leads to the threshold of despair
Invasion of the pure, pools of silence
By the endless noise of desire.
Addictions that sidetrack and eclipse
The hallowed energy of our higher selves.
Addictions that deaden our truest desires:
From tranquilisers to 'angel dust' and heroin.
If its ecstasy that you crave
Desire creates more desire
If its escape that you crave
Desire feeds off desire
Posted by Trevor
Here is a selection of poetry from the main Writers Cafe site to be found HERE. The poetry on the site includes material from performers at the Writers Cafe and International contacts. A link back to more of each poets work will be found by their names. I will add some audio versions soon to some of these posts where available.
Belinda Subraman is from the USA and has lived in various countries as her poetry reflects. She is the dynamic editor of the poetry magazine Gypsy, which began in the 80's and is still gong in a Podcast from on her My Space. Belinda has several cosmic and inspirational My Spaces and more links to her sites can be found on her post on the Cafe's main site HERE. I came across Belinda in the 80's when she published one of my poems in Gypsy and found here again on My Space. Here is one of her poems - more to be found on our main site...
Another Holocaust
Every night in Sudan ,
children walk miles
to be locked in,
eagerly jailed
against a greater harm:
torture, rape, murder.
Every morning
they walk back
to semi safety,
no respect
and little love
in their small lives.
Some run
toward their cold friend, Death,
protector from further harm.
This is not broadcast.
We watch sitcoms, soaps
and staged reality shows
about American egos.
We moan the price of gas for our SUVs
while children walk in fear, without hope.
........................
June Dixon (along with Sarah Henderson) were the Writers Cafe
reviewers in the days we were based at the Arc. Their contributions to the cafe were numerous and I witnessed their development from new poets to confident performers, reviewers, guitar players, to songwriters, playwrights and a band in the short space of two years. They formed a group called Knitware and when had a performance group that played the Studio in Hartlepool and the Spa in Saltburn and elsewhere with actress Dionne and poet Dominic. They were fun days! Sarah's poetry will appear here when I find some (or she sends some more), meanwhile here is one of June's poems with more the be found HERE
Habitual Liar
Temptation, like honey, drips
Its shiny film – sweet and pungent –
onto your mesh of fresh resolve
squelching through the vents
Your voice – squeaky like plastic –
affects overwhelming sweetness.
Yet your breath’s sour stench
betrays your eyes’ watery promise.
Your nails’ polished exterior
is tarnished and I am smote;
juicy red, stained yellow:
you are denounced by tobacco’s ghost
The headless stalk of your sin
lies without on a tablet of stone
where your crunching boot’s unyielding
underbelly thudded the roan.
But the poison lives on inside you
and poisons the atmosphere between us.
...............
Carmen Thompson - I met Carmen when we started the Writers Cafe, she was the Education officer for the ARC (Stockton's plush Arts Centre) and although she was responsible to the ARC for overseeing the project from their angle, Carmen was a poet herself and threw herself into the project with a zest unusual for an arts administrator! She must have felt role conflict at times as we regarded her as part of our team as well as the our link with the managment of the ARC but Carmen was dynamic and so in tune with all our our ideas and aspirations. Her contribution the development of the Writers Cafe and its success was outstanding. I have a lot of respect for her both as a friend and as an arts administrator (if only all arts adminstrators had the skill to straddle both roles without being at all patronising!). A joy to work with. Carmen also ran a Creative Writing group from which many of the students developed in to first time performers at the Writers Cafe. Here is a poem by Carmen - with more to be found HERE
Glastonbury 98
Open your mind
To the blind – drug hunger
Hit hawkers cry
Acid e’s and whiz
Hash cake, hash cookies
Sweetmeats for the semiconscious
The hunger of dealers and users
The mute hunger of the curious
Joining in the subterranean chorus of need
The need
To be off it
Out of it
Cold scum
Filthy sky
Any where but planet I
Where mary jane waits with her arms open wide
And i
Sink with the rain
Beneath the pulse of the caustic bass
I stare past sockets where eyes have been
My eyes struck still by the slow moving grace of a smile.
by Carmen Thompson
Katie Metcalf - Katie was young and new writer not long out of hospital
after suffering from Anorxia. She performed her poetry for the first time at the Writers' Cafe and we encouraged her and helped to build her confidence so that soon she graduated from doing a five minute Open Mic spot to being booked to do a longer set. She joined in some of the Creative Writing classes in the area and began performing her poems further afield and then she wrote a book full of insights into her experience of Anorexia with useful insights that are helpfully to families whose off spring suffer from this. The book took off and next thing we know Katie is being reviewed by the Guardian and the Independant and her book is being hailed. It was a joy to watch Katie transform her life and problems from a negative into such a postive in such a short space of time. Here is a poem or two in which she began to translate her awful experience into the written and spoken word - with more to be HERE
Hi Annie
Hi Annie
How are you today?
I am great, fine and dandy
I ate less than Mandy
At lunchtime today.
The sandwich Mum made went straight in the bin
Except for the tomato slice, but that was wafer thin.
Gym today was fantabidosy
I showed Mandy my thighs as she was being nosy.
She said I was thin, she said I was grim,
But what is she between us?
Hi Annie
How are you today?
I’m scared,
Feel alone,
I’m no longer at home,
I’m in a room where there are bars at the window
And I’m ordered to stay on my bed
Annie why don’t you come and help me
Come and step out of my head
And hold my hand like a real true friend
Annie please come and help me
I’ve been asked to eat
But I can’t
I’ve been asked to drink something too
And the people here are blaming my actions on you…
Katie Metcalfe. 2005
Ann Wainwright - I met Ann at Teesside Poly in 1980 shortly after my move from Coventry to Teesside. For 27 years Ann has been a close friend and co-conspirator on the poetry scene on Teesside. In 1982 she began Cleveland's first Poetry magazine Poetic Licence and I started the Multi-Media Workshops / gigs at the Poly encouraging drama, poetry and music. Soon we put the two together and established the Castalians (later the New Poetry Scene) from 1982 to 1984 at the Dovecot Arts Centre in Stockton (a forerunner of the Writers Cafe). On the Writers Cafe 's move to the Georgian Theatre Ann once again helped us re-establish the Cafe after the former team broke up, despite living miles from Teesside now. Her more prolific period of poetry writing was in the early 80's and I loved the quirkyness of her poetry (meaning that to be a positive comment as in not at all common place!). Here is a poem by Ann with more to be found HERE
THE ART OF DEFEATING YOUR FOE
i kiss these kissed lips no more
now spring has shown the way to go.
infirm, undone i feel i
am indeed a noble victory
that has been won-
i praise my men
(they fought so hard and well)
as oaken trees
(while i was sapless)
as is my won't.
acting no more, the day has come
for kissing a farewell
to your silken lipsofanger
hanging onto my tongue
(never let it go).
when kissing was a game
it came more easily
(such a lark it was)
no more.
Ann Wainwright 1981
Margaret Weir was my partner during the 90's - she became
chair of Middlesbrough Writers Group (where we met) and I helped her form the Phoenix Poetry Group with students from my many Creative Writing courses at the time. She soon became involved with Outlet - the Cleveland Poetry / literary develpment magazine I ran) as an editor and with Write Arite ( the Literary festival that was formed from Outlet). Margaret networked with all the writers groups I set up in the Cleveland area and few that wer already running and soon had them interacting with each other. Things slowed down when we had kids but a lot of ground work had been done in establishing a dynamic community based writing culture in the Tees Valeey area which has been been built on considerably. Here is one of Margaret's poems about those who come to the area as careeist - establish some great things to put on their CV before moving on to higher things having done little or nothing for the area and its indigenous people. This is especially true in the arts. The great thing about it is that when she read it out at Write Around Everybody was paranoid it was about them - even the visiting poet who Margaret had no previous knowledge of! It was certainly remember for a while.
WHITE LILIES (A Poem for Cleveland) 1990 by Margaret Weir
You who arrive like white lilies against the sun
Your hand clutching your blood red heart
Or is it a sword?
To build ivory cities in the future and the past
The future which you can own and the past which you do not
Take it and bend and mould the pliable steel until
It fits you’re perfect dream
As sweet, as true, every bit the picture postcard
As her rose clad garden, the sparkling hills and sea
His ballad of the fireside cat.
What shall I say of you?
That you were merely a lily
Trying to create an oasis
Out of the desert of the past
Which, from the safe, safe haven
Of your land of milk and honey
You can neither understand nor see.
Margaret Weir
MORE FROM THE POETRY GALLERY LATER IN ANOTHER POST....
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