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Featured Poet of the Month: Catherine
Brogan
Catherine Brogan has been writing poetry and performing her works from a very
young age. She has performed her poetry throughout the UK.
She was quite involved in the spoken word scene in Belfast and won the Belfast
Poetry Cup in April this year. She also raps to hip hop and her work has very
strong performance expression to their elements.
Catherine loves performing (with or with out music) and she believes her poetry
has to be heard and experienced. She has travelled the world quite extensively
and her travelling has and does bear great impact on her writing and the way she
looks at the world.
She enjoys performing her works and now exploring the London performance scenes
which she will soon win over with her energy and enthusiasm as well as the power
of her performancew. Come to hear her performance at the 4th London
Poetry Festival (August 8-11) at Waterloo St John’s Church.
Embers
Scatterings of famine
cottages Red dirt of abandoned villages
Lazy beds creep up the mountain
Trying to escape the potato famine
Children play on the graves of the black death
Its easy tto see there's little left
But the hand slapping, frisky dancing, The songs, the music, the craic,
Won't bring the dead back
The immigrants neither, but give the living
Something to live for,
Bring them higher and higher,
The best burn in a fire,
But the embers remain to rebuild again
Go Up
Granddad
My granddad was to play in,
In the first film,
Of Titanic, it would have been sick,
To see him riding the Atlantic,
Some random mick.
But he had the farm to tend,
Fences to mend,
Backs to bend.
While great Aunt Tessies making buns
The fighten Darcy’s are hiding guns,
In among the little ones,
Weeins as we say
When I was a weein I used to play,
All day, in among the hay,
Never knew my mothers dad,
Died when she was 15, fairly sad.
But no one talks of the sadness,
Grandmother’s madness,
The grinding poverty,
The longing to be free,
It wasn’t easy,
To get a job you see,
So they went to Amerikee.
In Ireland, everything must rhyme,
To pass the time,
Or you turn to drink so you don’t think.
Cause my brain and my granddad’s.
Couldn’t understand the grand plans,
Of the written language,
Never could gauge,
The subtle interplays,
The nuance, the nonchalance.
I want to explain my behaviour,
Jesus is not my personal saviour,
In my country if you have a problem – shout,
Speak out,
You got to be louder and bolder and colder.
You get respect for the terms of your abuse,
Full marks for good word use.
Its about the drama, the palava,
The poetry, the story,
The tin whistle, the prayer missal,
The oral tradition,
The big drums, screaming mums,
The Gaelic football, so stand tall, proud of it all.
Go Up
Grinny
Take you to strange
new places
No familiar faces
Song of summer sun
Coke and rum
No work to be done
Its all about fun
Sitting in the paddock
Lazin in the hammock
Playing in the fields
Finding sun shields
Chasing butterflies
Starin for miles
At the wide open spaces
Inter-mingling of races
It’s a silly rhyme
To pass the time
Fill in the gaps
Hide mishaps
Come on then chaps
Lets get the maps
And explore,
The inner core
Of our self
Not by stealth
But toking
Yeah smoking
Lots of pot
Somewhere hot
Let’s do Asia
You know it would amaze ya
What about Australia
You’re not a failure
If you run away
To enjoy your day
Away from grey skies
Wont miss pork pies,
Congestion charges
Narrow barges
Traffic jams
Souped up prams
The White lies
Shirt and ties
Everyone flies
Forget about the air miles,
Just get ready
To enjoy your bevy
On the beach
You could teach
Then date your student
You know its prudent
Or learn diving
And spend your life hiding
On some island
In Thailand
With a mushroom shake
In the sun you bake
Opium you take
Late you wake,
Sell your passport
then consort
with the ladies of the night
you know they do it right
or volunteer,
to look good over here,
help your career
so you can steer, clear
of the hobo,
that you don’t know
on go slow,
Can’t get motivated
in a country that’s hated?
Go where your accent is rated
As a novelty,
That sets you free,
Sets you apart
You don’t have to chart
This expedition
your personal mission
get an agency,
pay a big fee,
cause nothing is free
not even the sea
belongs to the hotel
they own the surf swell
the sea breeze
even palm leaves
if you stare your thieves
Tourism cleaves
The heart out
Its replaced by stout,
An English lout,
Fish and chips
And salsa dips
Swimming pools
Electrical tools
Sleep in a grass hut
If you’re a culture nut
Don’t be lame,
Just play the game.
Go Up
The Chamber Dictionary
(2006 ed.) definition of Irish
Look me up in the dictionary
Its clearer than pictionary
That you think I’m self contradictory
Prone to trickery
Its there in black and white
That you think I’m shite
And an irishism is a nonsensical idiom
That is a schism
In your sense of truth
That you hold aloof
And the bricks and mortar
That we throw at our torture
Is Irish confetti
Its that petty
Not the way to fight
Your might
So we’re coming back with words
Cause you made us fly like birds
Act like you never heard the dirge
That we sang to be free
Not to see what you preach to me
To find our own key
Now you bonnets got a bee
That we wont let it be
But we never had a hat we could tip like that
We just got spat at.
You gave me this tongue
So I’ll poke fun
At the cold hearted callous
The manipulative malice
The replacement of the phallus
With a chalice
Or a big bad gun
I’d rather have a hun as a mum
Than carry on the work that English done.
Go Up
Limited or No Connectivity
You just talk, don’t
listen
Filled with superstition
Give your prejudice
Sealed with a kiss
The nuance I can’t miss
You’re speaking with a hiss
Stop spitting in my face
Its not about race
Your venom I taste
My time you waste
Looking for a cure
For treating the poor
Its not about ego
The world must grow
Dance to higher beat
Themselves don’t cheat
With lies and deceit
Come on, let’s meet
Somewhere in the middle,
Be clear, don’t riddle,
Let’s kick off our shoes
Listen to our daily news
Hear the live broadcast
Let us drop the mask
Deconstruct the joint past
Identify the present task
Break free of the fear
The hurt brought us here
Its not about the cheer
Approval of the crowd
It’s the gathering cloud
About to rain on our heads
We can’t stay in our beds
Cause we’ll all get wet
On that you can bet
3.21 Onward still try to go
Not using the fast flow
Not trying to connect
Just trying to detect
Where it might lurk
The wireless network
Limited, no connectivity
Is making us jittery
There is no connection
That you can mention
That is not second-hand
Electronically planned,
My face is a .com
My space is logged on
My preference stored
My details they hoard
The western human race
Lost in a user interface
Quartering their half life
Play out trouble and strife
Stimulating love, sex
Breaking up by text
Adding to the basket
Cases more clothes
Buying a new nose
But what need of a body
When every commodity
Only needs Mastercard
Don’t worry about lard
But you can buy this diet
No wait, deep fry it
You can just deny
Or try, and then buy
2.15 Craft is a war on the world
Your halo is blurred
By the loose connection
Taped with disaffection
Oh wait now, I’m on line
So everything’s fine
The time I can kill
I can just chill
But the server’s not found
The servant is down
Reducing our town
To a set of machines
Only fit for the teens
Can’t talk to a person
The sale would worsen
1.15 I wanna avoid screens
Chip and pin scenes
Touch before I buy it
Taste and then try it
Poke and then prod
Sniff spice and cod
No canned or frozen
Want fruit I’ve chosen
No plastic, help the ozone
Bread I can squeeze
Pepper make me sneeze
Smelling the cheese
I’m weak at the knees
Hello, thank you, please
I’m greeted with ease
By the friendly owner
Their name on the door
Asking if I want more
As if its not a chore
Rounding prices down
Cause I smile as a clown
Cause we’ve connected
We’ve just elected
To speak face to face
See through the rat race.
0.57
Go Up
Catherine Brogan
Featured Poet of the Month:
Jason Irwin
Jason Irwin-grew up
in Dunkirk, NY, where he attended both Catholic & public schools. In 2005 he won
the Slipstream Press Chapbook contest and in 2006 his first collection,
"Watering the Dead" won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental Poetry Award from
Pavement Saw Press. He has had work published in several American journals
including Lumina, Sycamore Review, Miller's Pond & Pearl. He lives in Pittsburgh
with his wife, Wendi Lee.
Going Home
Across from the Babe Ruth Field—
where Eddie Zappie pitched three perfect games
and could’ve made it,
if not for booze and Stacy Watson—
I kick the dust in the parking lot
at the old steel mill
where both my grandfathers did time,
watch the sun through broken
windows, the bricks and rust, ten years
since anyone worked here.
Downtown it’s just as quiet,
a few old men on benches and kids
on bikes racing red lights.
All the stores went in ’75,
now there’s a Wal-Mart out by the Thruway.
On Center Street it’s the same fat girl
behind the counter at the convenient store,
the same empty box cars
on the Third Street overpass and at Sara’s Tavern,
the same faces drink the once local draft,
day after day, like the old women
who chant novenas and lust
after the priests at St. Mary’s.
I can hardly imagine what Dunkirk was like
when my mother was young, let alone
in 1851, when the first train arrived with President Fillmore
and Daniel Webster onboard.
There are people here who talk of leaving,
but only go as far as Bruce’s Corner Store,
or the Greek diner at the dock.
Maybe it’s the view of the hills to the south,
or the three smoke stacks
of the electric plant at sunset, that keep us here,
or maybe it’s the sound of my own voice,
reciting the streets named for birds and fish
as if they were the names of saints.
Go Up
Get Out
for Ed
The first light of morning fills the spaces
between tree branches and houses
along the avenue.
You scrape frost from the windshield
of a rented truck, blow
into your numb hands and watch
your breath escape, the way you plan to escape—
the way your father did
all those summertimes ago—
just get the hell out
with nothing to guide you,
save an overwhelming desire
you find hard to describe, that
uncertainty that grows down deep in men,
makes them question
the simple comforts and securities they’ve been taught
to be thankful for.
One thing you do know:
you won’t grow old and die
in this town, with that desire still burning
your lips, when they lower you in the ground.
You won’t work your life away
without taking that “talked about” chance.
Inside the truck you crank the radio,
light your last cigarette, inhale
and head south.
On the highway it all seems perfect,
the future spread out before you
like the most beautiful woman in the world.
Go
Up
Tokyo And The Rio Grande
I was not yet twenty-six that January
I drove cross country
with two women, one of whom
I was foolishly in love with—for she
was in love with a herbologist from LA—
and the other one, who chewed bubble gum and talked
about nothing but Brad Pi and Scientology—
we picked up at a diner
outside Mobile, and though I’d been to Ireland
and Bermuda, it was my first time
west of Ohio.
On Interstate 40, somewhere between Bluewater
and Thoreau, my head buried
in the pages of a road atlas, my fingers
following our course, I marked off
cities and towns we passed
and remembered how, as a child
I’d sit for hours, gazing at maps, transfixed
by longitudes and latitudes, infatuated
by topographies, maps of rainfall
distribution, ocean currents,
vegetation and mineral maps,
maps that show the relative motion
of tectonic plates, changes
in sovereignty, military advances
and retreats. How I was smote
with historical maps, grew dizzy
over political and population maps,
maps that measured the depths of oceans,
lengths of rivers, world maps, regional maps and city maps.
All these maps filled me with a longing for some place
Other, like the stories my Uncle Joe told,
of his days in Buffalo, Boston and New York,
wandering streets, working in a garment factory, selling
his blood for wine and being rejected
by the Nation of Islam because he was white—
Each time I opened an atlas
those wondrous melodies and rhythms
played in my ears, places ten years
after that first cross-country trip
I still have yet to see:
Zanzibar, Marrakesh, Calabria
and Wolverhampton, Argentina,
Pakistan, Tokyo
and the Rio Grande.
Go
Up
Nothing I Thought I Knew
Monday I was the last seat
in the back row, in Mrs. Miller’s
fourth grade—next to Joe Larivy,
who picked his nose through Spelling
and The Gettysburg Address—dreaming
I’d be a policeman, secret agent
or quarterback for the Buffalo Bills one day.
Tuesday I woke to the radio.
The announcer talked about a man
I’d never heard of, shot
the night before.
All day the TV, radio and newspapers spoke
his name. They said he was a singer.
My mother said it reminded her
of when Bobby Kennedy was killed.
It was the first time I’d seen her cry
since my father moved out.
Sunday, a memorial service interrupted
grandpa’s football. My cousin and I
sat in front of that giant, oak-trimmed Zenith,
watched thousands crying in the rain
outside Lincoln’s Memorial.
They played one of his songs, the lyrics spun
in my brain like a scratched record:
I am the Walrus, Goo goo goojoob, spun
like Monsignor Mengie’s Good Friday sermon,
and in that moment I knew
nothing I thought I knew before mattered,
that somehow I was saved.
Go
Up
For Mike, Going To War, Again
Has it been that long, twenty years
since we patrolled the neighborhood—
Deer Street, Leopard, Main—
dressed in our thrift store camouflage,
toy machine guns at our side, canteens
full of Kool-Aid? You thirteen and I
twelve, the year I had the home tutor,
and we spent New Year’s Eve
listening to Billy Idol and The Police,
smoking candy cigarettes,
dreaming of war.
How about that letter we wrote Melvin Tilly,
informing him
he was under surveillance
by the Junior Green Berets?
We watched triumphantly
from the Kapinski’s swing-set
Efran Lugo take the blame,
his mother decking him
right there in the driveway
with a powerful left.
Last night we talked on the phone
for the first time in years.
You are now a father,
years after
your own father died.
Remember his laugh,
the way he sang his love for Jesus
at those basement revivals
our mothers’ dragged us to?
I can still see him
playing a broom like a guitar,
dancing Chuck Berry style.
Today I’m in New York,
writing poetry, checking email
and you, in Texas,
preparing to go to war
again, the second time
in twelve years. I pray
you courage and a safe return.
Go
Up
Jason Irwin
Poetry from Italy: George Law
George Law was born
in 1954 in Sardinia-Italy who is a teacher and a lawyer in Cagliari.
He started writing
poetry in the seventies and travelling around willing to know the world. During
these years he lived, worked and studied in England (London), France, Holland
and South America
In the nineties he
intensified his literary production in Italian writing several plays.
His novel “And four
crows will be flying away” has won the National Contest “Avant-Garden” and is
due to be published by Boopen Edition - Naples.
The sun over ligurian
lands
I know you are there
Where the sun shines
over ligurian lands
Where the sea laps whispering on its shore
I know you are there
Because so much you told me about them
And I know that you have gone there
Forever
Though when you washed my feet,
that day in London, ‘ you remember it?
I didn't understand
But now I know, who you were,
I know who you are,
Over there
where the sun shines
over ligurian lands.
Cagliari, 1981
Go Up
The Cosmos’ conquerors
Like scissors cut from the head
The hair
That’s the way we were born in the Cosmos.
Wandering atoms,
molecules of discard,
rottenness of the universe,
ephemeral chemical structures,
extreme outskirts of living beings,
first in the nothingness of perishable,
first among the oblivioners,
sick walk-ons starlike,
beard of planets,
transitory living form
which has not still right understood
its correct value
in the complex alchemy
of the world.
Pain and pleasure
What else you are
If not two opposite chemical transformations?
Law and Ethic, brakes of fear?
Power, fallacious safety’s illusion?
I do believe that if tomorrow we disappeared,
Even exploding around with all our folly
the Cosmos would not however realized
we are not anymore !
Villasor- Sardinia 1984
Go Up
Looking for Manhood
I don’t want to be a poet
I want to be none
But a casting shadow in the night time
Looking for his body
His own stuff!
I don’t want your mercy
Your esteem
I don’t need your approval
I’m not looking neither for success
Nor for glory
Not even for reigning
Over gilt worlds
Nor for leading
Wastepaper troops
But I’m only on search
Of my real, original stuff!
Heartly despise me
Crush me under your feet
Forefinger me
As a pattern of human abjection,
Leaded by your mind’s
envy you will be
slaves of your own
measured freedom.
You ‘ll be winners
As well as defeated
Struggling the battle.
You will be the machines
Of your own progress!
On construing you
Will be destroying
And going towards
You will go backwards.
Inevitably!
In Cagliari, Autumn 1980
Go Up
Man on the Earth
What are you looking for
Man on the earth?
Your genetic’s program
Is only sorrow,disillusion
And finally death!
Why do you desperately search
Grasping rays of light
In the diods of your brain?
Don’t waste your time
Don’t be foolish
Man on the earth
You are only a machine.
Run, run, run
as far as your legs
can whelm on your weight!
Think, think, think
As deep as your mind
Can escape from control.
Who Knows?
Sometimes you might find
Another program has been stamped
On your head
With reversible engine control!
Cagliari, 1982
Go Up
When I’ll be going
Where I’ll be going
This afternoon
After visiting my tired old father
And my mother,
searching on television
Her youngish lost dreams?
Where will I go?
Where will I go
If my fate
Coerces me to be here
Where struggle is harder
Against prejudice
Against habitude
Against the foresaid?
My body suffers
From constraint continence
‘cause I don’t Know the way
To astral projection
For escaping the world.
So I can’t get
Things enough
To keep me on
And I have got no place
To go to
This afternoon
And I might be writing somewhere:
“When I’ll be going?”
Villasor 1983
Go Up
|
Editorial Poem:
The Wealth of Dart
"River
of Dart, Oh River of
Dart!
Every year thou
claimest a heart."
Come ride with me on
this Kayak
Built on my
ribcage’s ragged
flow
Come ride with me on
this rising
Whitewater risking
all that you have
For I have searched
for whitewaters
I have sung the
rapids and all their
Physical force-rings
that craft all the
Waves I have marked
their gradients
Constrictions
obstructions and
their
Pulsating rates of
flows all that form
The flow of gold in
liquid forms you
Come and ride with
me on this Kayak
And see how my body
bears the kisses
Of whitewaters and
their songs how it
Moists yours in a
heated monsoon of
Aqua lights forever
I sung in the solid
Liquidity of life’s
wealth I am in the
flow
Of River Dart I am
carrying the wealth
Of Dart emmaphire
all that I have all
is
In this Kayak this
grey silver Kayak
come
Ride with me and I
shall tell you how
the
Currents fluctuate
resonating our white
River hearts our red
river hearts our
sung
River hearts for I
have sung these oaks
For I have born out
these freshwaters
Foams these
rise-water falls and
these
Magnanimous flows
all that flows from
East and West
running and rising
towards
This falling
gravity’s invisible
pull-rivers
The Dart heartily
flows on its back
singing
Strainers sweepers
holes waves pillows
Under current rocks
eddies and sieves
Of whitewater rising
and running and
Forming promontory
prime possibilities
Of dreams of rias
and you the ria of
the
Kayak the beating
heart of this
motional
Aquanim of white
foaming white
forming
The River Dart the
wealth of my Dart
come
Ride with me on this
Kayak be my body’s
Boat or make me
your’s shape but
come for
I have come from the
valley of rivers
merging
In crystal green
with white running
as one flow
Come sing with me my
wealth of Dart on
this
Kayak and rise to
the moon-lit moors
like grey
Silver madness of
moist and
magnanimous mist
Come ride with me
and I will show you
the
Wealth of my Dart
for you do not know
how
The River Dart flows
a bloom East and
West
Risen castles of
Kingswear Dartmoor
risen
All rising this
jewelling of motion
and flow
All whitewater all
white whirling
white-go
Motional sonata of
our Kayak all
blending
In the formation of
a sea-fall forming
you
And I in a song of
our own solitude
grey
Come ride with me
and I will show you
Where the wealth is
of The Dart where
The emeralds are of
my Dart and where
The diamonds are
hidden of its soul
come
To this Kayak this
Kayak be my body’s
boat
Or make me your
body’s shape but
come
And ride with me I
who come from the
Home of the River
the fall the
whitewater
Fall and I shall
show you how an oak
sing
And how you dance in
the floating moon’s
Marks and I will
tell you how life is
of what
You touch and you
have done you the
flow
Of all that is
motion all that is
flow all that
Glow all that is hue
and high of this
plane
This flow of coming
together this flow
for
You have sung my
heart in a
disarrayed
Breaking up in flow
of love and longing
Come and claim my
wealth of Dart come
Come and flow
between the laminar
and
Turbulent flows and
only form and foam
All that is you and
all that is I all in
a song
Of a summer rise and
autumns falls and
Beyond time and its
temporal calls let
us
Ride on this Kayak
this Kayak and make
Me yours come ride
with me my wealth of
Dart come draw my
lights to rain rain
like
The East and West
Dart come meet me
where
The waters come
forming an aqua
supernova
White white and high
come and sing me and
Let me hear your
voice flow at
Dartmeet heat
The Wealth of
Dart, Copyrights @
Munayem Mayenin
2008
The 4th London
Poetry Festival 2008
The 4th London
Poetry Festival 2008
is poised to
celebrate its 4th
year during 8, 9, 10
and 11th August at
Waterloo St John's
Church, Waterloo
Road, London SE1.
Everyone is invited
to join in and
support the
Festival. For more
visit:
http://www.londonpoetryfestival.com
The Hothouse
Celebrating Female
Creativity
Across all Art Forms
The Hothouse launch
event will take
place at the Cross
Kings, 126 York Way
London N1 on the
30th September 2008
and will raise funds
for Inspired Word, a
voluntary
organisation
(registered charity
status pending)
providing creative
writing and self
development courses
for women in a safe
space
The launch event
will feature some of
London's best female
performers including
Zena Edwards,
Heather Taylor,
Patricia Foster,
Malika Booker, Aoife
Mannix, Karen
McCarthy, Jaqueline
Saphra, Dzifa
Benson, Esther Poyer,
Annette Walker,
Agnes Meadows, Naomi
Woddis, Jasmine
Cooray, Janett
Plummer, Esther
Poyer and Sara-Mae
Tuson.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20997126882
Go Up
The Royal London
Hospital &
Whitechapel AM Radio
Children and Young
People's Creative
Writing Competition
2008 Winners
Declared
Charilotte Bentley
has won
the Royal London
Hospital and
Whitechapel Am Radio
Children and Young
People's Creative
Writing
Competition for her
poem 'A 12 Year
Old’s Perspective of
a Dream'.
Second: Arif
Chaudhury: What a
Dream is Like
Third: Jasmine
Brown: Dreams
Lauren Clark and
Matthew Hopkins:
Commendation: For
The Dream of a
Homeless Boy:
Matthew Hopkins and
Rainforest Monkey:
Lauren Clark.
Judge Munayem
Mayenin said:
"Generally, the
standard of the
quality of the
entries were high,
particularly, the
imaginative use of
language to express
the way these young
poets view dreams.
These young poets
have the power of
imagination and the
ability to use
language well and
push it to the point
so to shape it in a
way that fits their
expressions."
"Charlotte Bentley
has won the
competition because
of her ability to
take dream as a
metaphor of liberty
and make it as
personal as one's
breathing. In her
work dreams become a
dual-metaphor of
vitality, stamina
and beauty of
'powerful stallions
running free' as
well as the soft
cute care of 'Small,
warm kittens
sleeping sound.'
Most importantly,
she has the power to
use the language in
a way that allows
her to bring
everything to life
and, here she uses
everyday language
but knits it with
great imagination
that speaks to the
reader powerfully."
Mayenin said about
the winner's poem.
Sarah Wardle the
other judge in the
Panel remarks about
the winning poem: "I
think that Charlotte
Bentley's 'A 12 Year
Old's Perspective of
a Dream' stands out
for its imagination
and her poetic
promise."
Oz Osman, Chief
Executive of
Whitechapel AM Radio
said: " We are
delighted that so
many young people
took part in the
competition."
So Poet's Letter's
congratulations go
to Charlotte
Bentley, Arif
Chaudhury, Jasmine
Brown as well as to
Lauren Clark and
Matthew Hopkins.
Well done guys! We
publish the winning
entries here.
A 12 year old’s
perspective of a
dream: First
By Charlotte
Bentley, Year 8
A dream is meadows
filled with flowers
The warm sun and
April showers.
Golden beaches
stretching their
arms wide
Reaching for the
forthy sea,
mesmerized.
Rainbows glistening
into pots of Gold
Wrapping up warm
when it’s frosty and
cold
Thick layers of
creamy snow covering
the ground
Small, warm kittens
sleeping sound
Powerful stallions
running free
Dreams, your
imagination running
wild.
What a dream is
like: Second
Arif Chowdhury
Class 7TA
A dream is like
walking round the
Earth in 2 days
With a pig for
navigation.
A dream is like
walking on air
Whilst watching the
ceiling above your
head.
A dream is like
living in the North
Pole
Whilst sleeping on
the sun.
A dream is like
watching your mum
smoke
Whilst watching your
dad cook and clean.
Dreams: Third
By Jasmin Brown,
Year 8
A dream is like
another world
Like flying through
the skies
Dreams are filled
with swirls and
twirls
Where all evil dies
Animals, creatures
and magical things,
Living right next
door
Bugs and Beatles on
slides and swings,
And elephants
falling through the
floor.
So what are
dreams,do you know?
Are they what you
think of when asleep
in bed.
Are they angels or
falling snow.
Or are they just
what’s inside your
head!
To know more about
The Royal London
Hospital &
Whitechapel AM Radio
Children and Young
People's Creative
Writing Competition
Purely Poetry: Aster
Samuel, 11, America
Everlasting Giver
Pretty little rose,
swaying in the
breeze
With her refreshing
fragrance she
attracts bees
When seen she is a
symbol of happiness
and love
She is a beacon as
pure as a peaceful
dove
When night time
falls her petals
glow
So animals gather to
come watch the show
She is a mix of
beauty, love and
care
She is a wondrous
miracle, a sight one
should share
Sadly few of her kin
still live
Still she gives,
gives, and gives
Acting greedy we
take without a
second thought
So give for a
change, have a heart
Go Up
Cloud
White as snow yet
light as a feather,
He controls the
weather,
Thunder sounds when
he is angered,
When decieved all
earth endangered,
When he is sad rain
trickles down,
But when delighted
light is showered
around,
During sunset he
turns pink,
While the sky turns
black as ink.
Buzz for Love
Buzzing happily from
flower to flower,
Humming contentedly
hour after hour.
Now and then making
trips to home,
To feed her babies
delicate as foam.
To Shower them with
love and care,
She looks for honey
everywhere.
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Blizzard
Snow is falling here
and there,
The wind is blowing
it everywhere.
Inside the house it
is cozy and warm,
While you watch the
bitter cold storm.
The snow is like a
blanket covering the
town,
The blanket is
thickening as the
snow comes down.
The wind carries the
snow like mist in
the air,
The snow is so
unique there is no
perfect pair.
A blizzard is like a
storybook, you can
find
These things
yourself, if you
know where to look.
Purely Poetry: Aster
Samuel, 11, America
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Poetry More
Benjamin Stainton
Her House is a Womb
...from birthing pool
to empty
tomb
the staircase flows,
forgetfully in
love
with time...
(the laughing master
called me moth)
...her room
left only a flake
of light
before closing
like a shy
flower...
(my
casing peeled
off in the
sea)
...bees inflamed birds
& so forth,
the way of things...
...dark notes burnt
like summers, in men...
(I kept a
flame
beating for
years)
*
...in her soft garden,
the assassin of youth
treads lightly...
(once I was
the infant
moon
& time
was just a
man)
...his long wane
drawls across her
window pane...
(down drops
my wing in
tears
for nothing
ever had
or lost)
...after fear erodes,
she comes to love
the dust on the stair...
(I am the
widow
in her
chair,
forever opening
my mouth)
...in this womb of a
house...
Go
Up
21st August
2004
Este amor prístino tiene raven-pelo…
A proud bull with puffed chest,
stands surveying his lusty women
from the coastal hotel roof.
I scuff bronze dust with a hoof,
wilting on my beachhead floor.
This sun polishes glass like water,
forming beads on the bare tans.
The clouds remain aloof,
so I drink the sea.
She emerges in red,
carrying a familiar scent of pears.
Ringlets drip dark holes in the sand.
Her face is framed by salt &
fresh as a lemon grove.
I opened her mauve dress once,
in a tremble before awakening.
Freckles rise to the brim & wink,
like pale roses speckled with ink.
The Spanish tide swallows me in pieces.
She fishes my scarlet heart back to shore.
Este amor prístino tiene raven-pelo…
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Words
The room is a red chrysalis,
& I, its fat pupae. Spindly evil
smells my helpless worm.
Its drone becomes berserk.
Ungainly plastic hands
roil over themselves
for a dip inside my hollow.
I am eternal.
Eternally scraping
light from the lids of others -
she, glitter in thick blackness,
he, digesting plump forever.
The rest are pencil jottings
in the margin. Erasable.
Years of sludge pass; beyond.
*
The tired vulva unclamps.
I vomit perfume. My sack splits
& a searing white
pours from the formless mass.
Words;
like raving colossi,
rip the remaining tissue.
I yank free my tender lip,
puffed with fire
& the flower of ecstasy,
large enough to fill a world,
yet nothing solid leaks
when I try speaking.
The mouth is a blitzed city.
Failure: my grandest birth.
Benjamin Stainton
Go Up
Flagged Tomb Carol Lynn Grellas
Hear my dreaming?
It’s of sweet musk
and linen cologne−
shaved faces of soft men,
lilies over war-graves
where blackbirds fly
in search of blooms.
Hear my dreaming?
I sleep in a gown
with navy lace that slips
deep, between my breasts−
the blush of the moon
calls through the glass
to a woman
with a porcelain face.
Hear my dreaming?
She recites prayers
in beautiful Latin.
Her hair circled
with a flowered wreath,
I taste her tears.
They fall in my mouth.
Hear my dreaming?
I see her glide
through portico walkways
holding poppies, petals open
picked from the meadow
on a Sunday afternoon.
No, picked from churchyards
where husbands sleep.
Carol Lynn Grellas
Poetry More: Benjamin Stainton and
Carol Lynn
Grellas
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Events
Utter Events
This month there are two
fantastic Utter! Poetry events which I hope you can include in
your listings or let all your friends and fans know about if you
are involved! The first is:
Utter! Dalston, Sun 27th July, 5pm, £5, Arcola Theatre, 27
Arcola St E8 2DJ.
Overland: Dalston Kingsland
FACEBOOK EVENT:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=32077283640
TIM WELLS: Editor of Rising, "The Readers' wives of poetry mags"
according to John Cooper-Clarke, nominated for the Forward
prize, reads hard-edge poems on Stoke Newington shootings, sound
system rudebwoys and Roger McGough's poo.
GUY J JACKSON: Surreal and entertaining ten-gallon tales from
his Camden Fringe show 'Filthy Pilgrim'. Jim Henson, Terry
Gilliam & Richard Brautigan walk into a bar…
ALISON BRUMFITT: Utter! Ajar Mic contest 2007 Grand Final
winner; wry, recyclable rhyme from Oxford and her book 'Queen
of F#cking everything', as heard on Radio 4
JOHN CITIZEN: Mild-mannered uncle of UK poetry lets rip with
poems about love, libraries and lovely libraries
SARAH VERRINDER: Comic but often affecting poetry from the
Utter! head Henchperson and travel writer, as read in the
Delinquent and heard at Poetry & Poppadums, Torriano and all
over really….
+ 2 floorspots – arrive early!
Transport: Dalston Kingsland overland, 67, 76, 149, 243, 30 &
38 buses.
FACEBOOK EVENT:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=28618110604
Utter! Music, Weds 30th July, £2 before 7.30pm start, £5
thereafter, Salisbury Hotel, 1 Grand Parade, Green Lanes, London
N4 1JX.
Tube: Turnpike Lane / Manor House.
Bus: 141, 29, 41, 67. Overland: Harringey Green Lanes.
Info/press/ajar mic/access: Contact 07912 539 098 or
richardtyronejones@gmail.com
ZENA EDWARDS: Fuses breathtaking poetry with music via the
Kalimba, Kora and natty thumb pianos. Shortlisted for the £10k
Arts Foundation performance poetry prize, veteran of two
one-woman shows, two albums and appearances on BBC radio, Sky
TV, WOMAD, London Jazz Festival, Royal Festival Hall and
Glastonbury.
"Humorous, peppery, potent" - MUZIK
TROMBONE POETRY: Playful, funny, self-deprecating Oulipo-inspired
poems inbetween smart jazzy solos, as heard backing The Pogues
and Dexy's!
www.trombonepoetry.com
LIL' LOST LOU: Poetry and catchy trashy guitary blues from the
star of the antifolk scene
DUKE HANCOCK: June's ajar mic victor and M.C. (middle class)
rapper on subjects of urban woe from street crime to the
property ladder!
AJAR MIC CONTEST: You vote who gets a full paid slot next month:
ALAN WOLFSON, MELV, SARAH VERRINDER or guitarist JUDE COWAN???
Date and time: 7.30pm, Weds July 30th, '08
Cost: £2 before 7.30pm start, £5 thereafter, FREE SWEETS and
PRIZE DRAW to win a bag o' books!
Address: Salisbury Hotel, 1 Grand Parade,
Green Lanes, London N4 1JX.
Tube: Turnpike Lane / Manor House.
Bus: 141, 29, 41, 67. Overland: Harringey Green Lanes.
Info/press/ajar mic/access: Contact 07912 539 098 or
richardtyronejones@gmail.com
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Aoife Mannix at Ledbury
Poetry Festival
Ledbury Poetry Festival
is Britain’s largest Poetry Festival, brimming with events over
ten days every summer. See www.poetry-festival.com for more
information
Growing Up an Alien
Saturday, July 12th
5.00pm - 6.00pm Community Hall £10
Intimate, enchanting and funny, Growing Up An Alien is the new
show from captivating Irish writer and performer Aoife Mannix.
In the company of mesmeric accordionist Janie Armour, Aoife
revisits her nomadic childhood, exploring the relationships that
bind all families together and the secrets that pull them apart.
Born in a snowstorm in Stockholm on the stroke of midnight,
Aoife reveals a wondrous coming-of-age tale about searching for
a place to belong.
written and performed by Aoife Mannix
music written and performed by Janie Armour
designed by Kerry Bradley
produced and directed by Mike Kirchner for Apples & Snakes
And In Poetry
Arena at Latitude Festival
Time and Place Start
Time: Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 2:00pm
End Time: Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 12:00pm
Location: Latitude Festival
Street: Henham Park
City/Town: Southwold, United Kingdom
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=21084249749
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The Farrago Summer Fest
Launch SLAM!
Open to ANY poet SLAM!
With a summer themed prize for every poet taking part! + a
brilliant feature line up: Niall Spooner-Harvey, Jasmine Cooray,
Michelle Dabrowski, Dudley Sutton, Under Da Poetree, Zainab Adam
& jazz and poetry from Fran Landesman with jazz pianist Simon
Wallace.
Time and Place Date: Thursday, July 17, 2008
Time: 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location: RADA Foyer Bar
Street: Malet St
City/Town: London, United Kingdom
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=28091401627&ref=mfVoices
in Harmony
A Charity event for the
Robert Levy Foundation and the Hackney Empire celebrating the
human voice and all things verbal. Featuring Crisis, Richard
Tyrone Jones and Kat Francois amongst others. The Magnets will
also be performing along with other acapella groups.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Time: 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location: Hackney Empire
Street: 291 Mare Street
City/Town: London, United Kingdom
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=20690466115
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Tongue Fu – Summer Special!
Tongue Fu returns on 30th July after a brief sojourn to the Jazz
Lounge at Glastonbury Festival, with a sizzling summer bonanza
of red hot performance poetry, backed by the dizzying collective
talents of The Ventriloquist Band..
Featuring
Michael Horovitz
Jazz Poetry pioneer, editor-publisher of New Departures,
torchbearer-coordinator of Poetry Olympics, singer-songwriter
anglo-saxophonist & leader of William Blake Klezmatrix band.
“Popular, experienced, experimental, New Jerusalem, Jazz
Generation, Sensitive Bard” (Allen Ginsberg).
"a dreamer, a maverick ... transmedial crusader" (Martin Amis)
Polar Bear
One of the UKs finest young performance poets fusing humour,
humility, dazzling wordplay and hip hop delivery. His one man
show ‘If I Cover My Nose You Can't See Me’ opens at the South
Bank’s Purcell Rooms in July.
Last Mango In Paris
Currently putting finishing touches to his brilliant debut
album, Last Mango is a poet, prankster and master performer, of
Indian root and British fruit. He has worked with Talvin Singh,
Alex Wilson and recently he toured in Don Lett’s show, Speakers
Corner.
Hosted by
Ventriloquist
Poet, performer and musician who hosts Tongue Fu with members of
the Ventriloquist band (Nostalgia 77, Heritage Orchestra). “…a
wordsmith wizard whose sublime art of story telling in verse is
impossible to ignore" (Poetry Book Society).
“riotously entertaining” DJ Mag
Weds 30th July
The Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road London EC1
Doors 8pm
Entry £5
Conc £4
Go Up
Photography: Devon: Sound Mind
Exibition
Photography by Chris Allan
Produced over a 3 year period, this exhibition is a documentary
on the daily life of a sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia. The
photographer and subject hope that viewers will come away with a
positive feeling about someone who is suffering from this
illness; and to further help, in some small way, to break down
the stigma that surrounds it. Also on display is photography
recording the regeneration of the hospital as well as photos
from some service users.
Date: Thursday 31st July 2008 from 4-8pm.
Place: Springfield University Hospital, 61 Glenburnie Road,
London SW17 7DJ.
Nearest Tube: Tooting Bec.
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Poet of the Month: Tricia Peak
I was born under wide
Australian skies, at the poetically named Moss Vale. Sky, clouds
and lights have always been a major source of poetic inspiration
for me. My fairly isolated but peaceful suburban childhood
included a house full of music and books – when I wasn’t up a
tree. I lived intensely in this narrow world, revelling in the
garden birds, the little details of life, the beauty of sunsets
over the Blue Mountains visible from our house. The biggest gift
of my childhood was learning to mine the riches of my own mind
and of everyday trivia, a perpetual feast for a budding poet.
Educationally, I went to Penrith High School, a parochial
coeducational state school, followed by Sydney University and an
arts degree with a major in English. Unfortunately tertiary
level creative writing wasn’t an option in those days. Or maybe
it can’t be taught!
I first started to write poetry when I was 10. My private life
revolved round writing to penfriends and contributing to the
ABC’s “Children’s Hour” radio programme. At 17, I not only
discovered Sex, but the few people to whom I showed my poetry
sneered at me. “Oh yes, adolescent poetry! You’ll burn out and
stop writing when you grow up!” They mocked the Freudian images
they knew I didn’t understand. I was made to feel naïve and
stupid. It seemed I needed to experience life before I could
qualify as a poet! I was so dashed by these words, that it was
twenty years before I came back to writing poetry again and even
longer before I once again started to share my poems. The odd
thing, however, was that, in my own head, in my lowest moments,
my perception of myself as a poet was that defining something
which made me special and raised me out of the doldrums. I still
wrote, just not much poetry, apart from making up songs and
verses for my toddler children.
My adult poetry life blossomed back into life in 1987, when I
moved, with my husband and two children, onto a sailing boat. By
now, I knew I was more qualified to write about the noise,
nerves and happiness of life, Subsequent travels, often in Third
World countries, turned me into a true global child. Somehow or
other I ended up in Key West, separated but with both kids to
support. There followed an interesting array of jobs including
taxi driving. I came out of the closet with my poetry, getting
involved with the Key West Poetry Guild and a supportive network
of fellow writers. Above all, I wrote. Poetry, fantasy fiction
and travel writing. Back in England, a struggling freelance
writer, I’m working on a cross-channel ferry.
I tend to produce poetry almost compulsively, as natural to me
as breathing. Best of all, it most accurately reflects where
I’ve got to at any point in time. I tend to live on the edge,
and feel I’m still growing and developing. This poetry residency
will hopefully be just one more step on my varied and eclectic
path.
Tricia Peak was one of
the five Poets in Residence at the
3rd London Poetry
Festival 2007.
GULL BABY
The brown speckled
herring gull baby, gawky,
strutting awkwardly,
self-consciously,
at Eastbourne station.
has not the self-confident,
plumage-sleek lordliness
of the adult bird.
On the train
where I sit watching,
Enters a youth,
wearing a hat
with long earflaps,
and something like
a dead animal
nestled on his lip.
His eyes,
His eyes
are what I notice,
the give-away.
His eyes
Are wild and cold.
Maybe he's the human
version of
the seagull baby.
They have the same eyes.
Go Up
NO COMMUNICATION
He's waiting on Dover Platform two,
A crew-cut boy with lustreless eyes
and an ancient face cut in stone.
He has a bicycle he grew out of.
Maybe it¹s the current fashion.
He looks as if he knows where he's going so I launch in with,
"Excuse me, but "is this the right platform for the six fifteen
to Charing Cross?" "Dunno," he says, without looking at me.
I try again, "Well, which train
are you waiting for?" It's how I'd address anybody else,
"Train!" he says, as if I'd asked a really personal question, or
propositioned him.
I shrug, and move off along the platform.
Another electronic departure board
is working and gives me information.
The man boy gets in my carriage,
ahead of me, his eyes dark pits.
He's wearing a raggy blue tshirt,
doesn't cheek the conductor,
chats with someone on a mobile,
and alights half an hour down the line
leaving me none the wiser.
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BORES
Men over fifty are often such bores,
Always the hero of every story,
The humble man listens, the egotist roars.
Full of woe about wife and inlaws,
His self centredness is really quite scary, Men over fifty are
often such bores.
Telling jokes which nobody shares,
He¹s not the sort you¹re desperate to marry, The humble man
listens, the egotist roars.
Quoting poems that nobody hears,
He thinks he¹s so clever, he never says sorry, Men over fifty
are often such bores.
It¹s sometimes the mundane he¹s desperate to share, His life is
reduced to a tedious glory.
The humble man listens, the egotist roars.
A young woman thinks he knows the score, An older one knows he¹s
full of pigs¹ slurry, Men over fifty are often such bores, The
humble man listens, the egotist roars.
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Broken Glass Man
Your broken glass lips
flicks words at me.
The splinters from your broken glass eyes crawl over my skin.
Your broken glass breath
puffs shards of ice.
Your broken glass words
stick in me,
lacerate my brain
Your broken glass hands
reach for me
with window-shattering intensity.
Your broken glass tongue
teaches me
what broken glass silences are like.
You are my broken glass man.
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DIVISION OF TIME
My glasses lug fell across the clockface dividing time
indivisibly on a snowlit night when the cold had interpenetrated
all but the most robust of lantern glows.
My glasses lug created a spectacle
in a spectral time of night,
a specific division
where none might be expected.
The zero transmogrified into an eight,
the one becoming a seven,
rearranging the hour into extra minutes
which is probably an advantage
in an era when hours get gobbled
mysteriously and irrevocably.
My glasses lug and I therefore entered
a conspiracy to lengthen each hour,
probing the snowtime
spring conjunction,
that unfathomable hour
when even cars sleep.
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NORTH BY NORTHWEST FESTIVAL
July 26-2nd August 2008
North by Northwest is
the 2nd Wigan Festival of Arts & Music, to take place at a
number of venues across Wigan during the week 26thJuly - 2nd
August 2008, and is a celebration of the various creative
circles working in and around Wigan.This is a festival for
anybody interested in Art, Literature and Music.
Saturday 26th July
Festival Launch – Orchestrated Jam with film & art show
Club Nirvana, Clarance Yard, Wigan
8pm till late
Sunday 27th July
All Ages All Dayer
Club Nirvana, Clarance Yard, Wigan
With The Kicks, the Morrettis, Friday Night Drop Team & more
4pm till late
Monday 28th July
NXNW Festival Poetry Slam
The Tudor House Hotel
8pm
Tuesday 29th July
The Poetry Brew at Caffe Nero, Wigan
All ages welcome to come and read their poetry.
7-9pm
Wednesday 30th July
Poster Exhibition at Santos Coffeshop, Wigan
With DJ Johnny Alpha
8pm
Thursday 31st July
Imploding Acoustic Inevitable
The Tudor House Hotel, Wigan
with Table, David A Jaycock Quartet, Russell Joslin and Peter
Kennedy’s Puppetual Motion
8pm till late
Friday 1st August
Digits at the Tavern, Mesnes Street, Wigan
Band night
9pm till late
Saturday 2nd August
Club Underground featuring Selfish C*NT
The TavernMesnes Street, Wigan
With support from Total Victory & Migs
8pm
The Mental Virus Magazine will also have a new issue out and for
sale during the festival.
www.thementalvirus.com
Also the Wigan Arts Collective will be doing a site specific
exhibition in the windows of the Tavern.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2436284329&ref=mf
Edwin Morgan’s Book of Lives wins Sundial Scottish Arts Council
Book of the Year Award
Edwin Morgan has won the £25,000 Sundial Scottish Arts Council
Book of the Year Award for his latest collection of poetry, A
Book of Lives.
The winner was announced at the annual Sundial Scottish Arts
Council Book Awards ceremony which this year was held at the
Borders Book Festival in Melrose, and hosted by writer and
comedian Rory Bremner in the major highlight of the Festival
weekend.
A Book of Lives is a triumphant achievement in one of the most
illustrious and influential literary careers in the history of
Scottish literature. Professor Morgan was appointed Scotland’s
first ‘Makar’ or National Poet in 2004, and his prodigious
oeuvre, which includes literary criticism, translation, essays,
and drama as well as poetry, now spans over fifty years of
work.
A Book of Lives marks a powerful distillation of the remarkably
diverse range of themes, styles, and forms that characterise
Morgan’s endlessly inventive poetic world. Confronting global
issues such as the ‘war on terror’ and major historical events
closer to home, such as Bannockburn or the opening of the
Scottish Parliament, this is also a collection of remarkable
personal candour and intimacy; at its heart is a major sequence,
‘Love and a Life’, exploring the eternal dynamic between life
and art.
Describing the book Edwin Morgan stated:
'I believe there are no barriers in subject matter or style in
poetry. And you can only persuade people of that if you're
actually writing it....If it's any good, the collection must be
more than just a book of lives. The title is meant to set you
off thinking, off on a course of ideas.'
The difficult job of selecting the winner from the shortlist of
four books was down to a distinguished judging panel comprising
writer and broadcaster Janice Galloway; Professor of Literature,
literary critic and poet Rory Watson; Lilias Fraser, Reader
Development Officer at the Scottish Poetry Library; and Dr Gavin
Wallace, Scottish Arts Council Head of Literature, who chaired
the panel in a non-voting capacity.
Commenting on the winning book, the judges said:
‘A Book of Lives is a prodigious creative achievement by any
standards from a poet who is, arguably, not just Scotland’s
greatest living poet, but one of the greatest in
English-language poetry world-wide. Morgan’s indomitable
fascinations with energy, with transformation, with that which
is beyond imagination itself, are superabundant here in a
breathtaking variegation of form, style and subject: equally
powerfully, this is a book of deeply moving – and often
startling – personal candour and directness. To put it simply -
A Book of Lives is a book for living.’
On presenting the award William Gray Muir, Director of Sundial
Properties, the sponsor of the awards said -
‘It’s terrific to see that such an important and long standing
figure in Scottish poetry is still at the top of his game, and
it’s fantastic to be able to recognise him at this stage in such
a successful career.’
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