Thursday 30 June 2016

Found Poetry

Found Poetry….

                 falls at my feet, or
hangs
         on railings on street corners
where someone lost
it. There are c o d i  f i  e d 
      words
within words, within
books not
      meant to con-
                             tain them,
or spines of volumes
            arrayed on shelves
seem-      ingly    in-     ad-     vertently.

Found poetry, is a lost
child, a muse, a metamorphosis
within a chrysalis mind

or a cap that fits.

Found poetry are signs
signalling
new meaning and points
pointing in new directions,
                         all directions,

                         or none 
at all.

Wednesday 22 June 2016

The Radium Dial Girls

During my writing course, (a215, Open University) I came across an area of London with a very particular link to historical worker contamination. The workforce was predominately female but the steps they took to address their situation had reaching implications for the trades union movement and male workers. I’m still keen to write my original piece but whilst researching this I came across another, related story. The poem I wrote in response has been published by ‘I Am Not A Silent Poet’, with my rather lurid but pertinent, artwork accompanying it.

My thanks to I Am Not A Silent Poet for publishing my work and continued support for writers protesting – no matter how historical the subject matter, we can see similar wrongs in developing countries even now.



p.s. I think the shop owner of the establishment where I took this photo must have thought I was bonkers but hey-ho... what's got to be done in the name of poetry just has to be done!

Sunday 19 June 2016

Poems of Protest

So much time has been taken up with other projects that is almost a week since I last posted.

Things that have taken me away from writing / posting here include the launch and background work for Matryoshka Poetry, a new web space that actively seeks to promote new and emerging poets and compiling some poetry that I would like to submit to webzines whose ethos I admire.

I’m so pleased to see my protest poem about breast ironing in Cameroon published by I Am Not A Silent Poet. I know it is a subject that is troubling but I feel strongly that these issues should be part of the discussion regarding FGM and am pleased that there are projects like IANASP that offer a platform for discussion and as a force for change.

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Typing Without Looking, Acting Without Thinking

GLASSES

without glasses 
I type 
blind
and when I find them
it is like
a spy has come into the room
transposing my lines 
for those
in code 
to stop me 
understanding

myself

Sunday 5 June 2016

Big Things vs Small Things

There was a blip in my postings for a few days… big things were afoot and that meant sequestering myself and beavering away at ‘stuff’.

The big ‘stuff’ that was happening included the launch of Matryoshka Poetry, a project originally mooted way back at the start of the poetry section of my course, to a dear friend. He has become the marshal, pushing things forward and ensuring I don’t lose sight of good intentions when studies, work and family distract me – plus knowing lots about techy stuff. ;-) . Blessings to Bart, and blessings too for Yolanda and Stephanie who have agreed to come on board and become the masthead for a poetry project that actively seeks to promote students studying creative writing courses. 

In the mean time a poem I submitted to Quatrain Fish has been accepted and I’m looking forward to seeing it published there this week.

I’ve had great fun exploring the art of Eileen Cooper RA at my local museum gallery and have focussed most of my writing this week on her work and a few old favourites housed at the gallery that I’m beginning to see in a new light. Its interesting to me how art, in all its forms, changes those who absorb it. For instance, I had long been aware of an image called Small Things by Lisa Milroy but it was after reading the Mad Cow poems of Jo Shapcott that I saw Small Things as the objects that had drifted into the blank of dementia.

Small Things, Lisa Milroy, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
                Small Things

It was
small things
drop-
        ped from fingers
slip-
       ped through colours
                               in my mind
to join mis-
                    placed memories
hid                   den from
         myself
in safe
white
blankness.

It was
         a sort of process,
                         filtering,
                         seeping,
                        osmosis,
a gentle progress,
welcoming
                    small
                                 abandonments.
                                                 .................................                                  


                                                                                     (I hear that yellow is the last colour to fade from                         memory, when memory finally fades)


I think this picture sums up my feelings about this week. Make of that what you will.
Eileen Cooper RA at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

But it’s the conflicts between the small and the big things that really piqued my interest this week... well that, and the launch of Matryoshka Poetry http://www.matryoshkapoetry.com.

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Syrphidae

The Latent Visitors

Where are the hoverflies,
the sleek
syrphidae in bright
yellow and black?
They were the smart, darting
wasp imitators,
wings beating
silently,
stealth feeding
through the garden.
They were
mesmerising visitors
hanging
over bobbing blooms,
nodding ruby buds
of salad burnet
and sun and cloud haze
of cotton lavender.
Why did they desert the garden

leaving it sadder for their absence.