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Featured
Poets of the Month
Claire
Askew
 Claire
Askew is 21 years old, and a final-year Masters student of
English Literature at the University of Edinburgh.
She won both writing prizes at the Scottish finals of the Bar
National Mock Trial contest in 2004, and more recently her work has
appeared in NewLeaf, Open Wide Magazine and The Beat, among others.
In June of this year her poems were showcased alongside the work of
six other emerging Edinburgh poets in 'Type Dreams,' a collection
published by the Forest Free Press. Claire is also Editor In
Chief of literary magazine Read This, a monthly publication which
aims to provide a platform for emerging writers to showcase their
work.
Claire’s favourite writer is the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg,
and she is currently writing a long dissertation about the impact of
canonisation upon his early works.
When
Domonic left me for the Dutch girl
When
Domonic left me for the Dutch girl, parts of him
didn't go. The blue-striped, moth-holed sweater stayed,
knotted - no doubt to annoy me - into a ball
on the battleground of the bedroom floor. There were still
the
nauseating tealeaves he bought me, exploding
in the back of the cupboard - still his mother's voice
on the answermachine, condoms in the bin,
a sink full of empty bottles. There was still
the
stupid t-shirt that said "someone in Texas loves me" -
still his scent on everything, the smell of the Bible-belt.
The park bench where we broke up sat resolute
outside the house, a road-block, and I found
his
prayer-book, her phone number written in the back.
There was still food in the fridge I couldn't eat,
still his stale beer. Until I shattered it on the icy path,
there was still the necklace he liked, that I wore daily.
He
sent me a Christmas card, a perverse peace-offering,
and signed it from both of them. I still had photos of him,
albeit eyes poked out with pencil-ends; still kept
his ticket-stubs, receipts and change, razor-blades.
A
little later, Domonic left the Dutch girl, though not entirely.
Soon, he will be scattered in pieces across the globe,
his fingernail-clippings in a sink in Switzerland, a pair of shoes
in a Welsh dresser; his hair on many pillows, many voodoo dolls.
Go to Top
I am the
moon, and you are the man on me.
Tonight, I
am white and full.
My surface is all curves
and craters, but you don't mind.
You have travelled alone through the dark,
through the vacuum of dark;
training your hands for this task,
building imaginary engines.
This is the
kind of territory you were born
to navigate. You know by heart
every treacherous route
through these white dunes;
you have drawn maps of every scar,
and you sense storms.
Your compass does not work here,
but you are sexy
in your spaceman suit.
We twirl
giddily, in orbit
around the days, the months.
You are wary of my high tides,
but I am your escape-pod.
A familiar world spins below,
tracked by the beam of your telescope;
we shudder at passing asteroids,
send messages home by sattelite.
Tonight, I
am white and full.
You are the man on me,
and I am the moon.
Go to Top
Spark
Daybreak.
A foul wind skirts the house, flecked
with soot - the sun rises, molten
and ugly: a greasy torch
barely lighting the choked sky.
My bare feet are dark
against the scarred, whitewashed boards
of the porch. The red earth
is cracked. Forgotten washing
sags with smoke-damage
in scorched yards.
It started as a whisper
in the long white grass - at the end
of the field, where the snakes bask
among the rocks. I had heard the warnings
earlier, stacatto on the wireless.
The tinder-box was cool and heavy,
shifting against cotton in the pocket
of my pinafore. The letter fluttered
in my brown hands, taunting -
my tread was heavy, my heart heavy.
I had brought a skin of well-water
to the curling flames, to douse
this secret confession, twisted
and spent. But something stirred
in the dark embers. Something hungered.
It is alive now, this thing birthed
by grief in a twilit field.
It has howled all night in the plains,
the air alive with the crackling
of the brittle limbs of trees.
All night it has clawed
at the drought-parched river;
and soon some breeze or bough
will form a bridge. Trucks rattle away
through the dust, deserting me.
And soon my clapboard house
will snap and fold beneath the flames;
the clay wall will split, and crumble.
And I will stand, aghast, in the dirt -
streaked with ashen tears - and burn.
Go to Top
Why I Can't Write
I can’t write
because someone told me
I overuse commas,
and now there is a hole in my keyboard.
Because I only live in one century,
and some poems aren’t poems at all
even though I want them to be.
Because nowadays
your paintbrushes are only ever used
to clean out the record player.
I can’t write
because I don’t recognise my arms anymore –
and because of birth control, and my mother
not telling me what I want to hear.
Because I am formless, and I misplaced my textbook,
and the only place you’ll find emotion
is in my line-breaks.
Because of sex in the car
on blustery days, and Easter eggs.
I can’t write
because of lists
and books and pay-cheques and mugs
and photographs and sailors and sleep
and computer screens.
Because of the M6 motorway,
or a potentially fatal asteroid, or the debate
over the 1969 moon-landing.
Because I did or didn’t
orgasm, or wash up, or buy tomatoes.
I can’t write
because I am not a Virgo,
and I am distracted by arranging books
according to the colour of their spines.
Because of the silence
that lives inside telephone boxes
and plays over filmreels of a ruined Nagasaki.
Because the pages of my notebook
are too narrow for my lines.
Go to Top
When
I Am Dead
Years
from now, when I am hauled away
by some bronchitic affliction, perhaps;
or gutter out like a gas-lamp, after choking
on a favourite word, do not bring me flowers.
Ungrateful maybe, but I do not want bouquets -
the papery pinks that rust and rot
at the first sign of rain; extravagant lilies
or roses - bloody, a flower I never liked.
Instead, bring me something good to read
(my old, well-worn Selected Robert Lowell).
Or bring me a poem you wrote yourself,
but preferably not about how much I'm missed.
Bring a steaming dish of soup to my tombstone,
and serve it to the soil. Come in the night
with caul and candle, to call up my ghost -
bring me garlic, in case of nuisance neighbours.
Drop by drunk and slurring, and leave me
your empty bottles. Bring you car keys
to carve a skull-and-crossbones by my name.
Lie on my little hollow lawn, and listen.
I will be watching you, from wherever it is
the dead go. If you bring me flowers, I'll know.
Go to Top
Sovereignty!
Whose Sovereignty!
Munayem
Mayenin
The
problems of international law are based on a flawed philosophical
grounding in which, because of the fact that it grew out of the
political system and philosophy of power and dominance, it was taken
to be an expression of ad hoc equilibrium which was struck by the
various players accepted that they had acquired an even hand with
their adversaries. The United Nations was rightfully the beginning
and ending of the principle of international law. Yet because the
power based system that essentially means now globalised capitalism
cannot achieve any sort of inner cohesion or equilibrium because it
is based on at best partial and at worst utter irrationality and
hence the job for the UN became almost impossible in which it has,
now, to work impossibly hard to achieve the unattainable in that it
has to learn to find a way to establish utter irrationality appear
rational.
Coming back to the problem: the international law concept accepted
that the nations of the world are members of the UN and hence are in
themselves to be holder of absolute sovereignty. This means only one
thing: fencing in the oceans! How could you mark your boundaries on
the oceans and how do you then go onto police that territory that
has been mapped out using pseudo lines? The very political
philosophy that accepts that is doomed to failure.
This goes right into the heart of the United Nations. Members have a
right to run and manage their own affairs and they have a right to
defend themselves. These two rights are incompatible with the
principles of international law and peace, justice and human rights
etc.
How? Well, let us look at Iraq. Iraq is a sovereign nation. So is
Zimbabwe, Sudan, Russia, China, America, Israel, Palestine and
Britain and so on. Hence, when Saddam killed thousands of his
countrymen the UN did not or could not do anything. Because Saddam
was exercising his sovereignty. Internal affairs! Sudan is doing it,
it's running its own business. Zimbabwe doing it, no problems it is
running its internal business. Israeli occupation of Palestine and
continual massacre of Palestinian population is justified as it is
viewed and seen by the major powers, members of the UN defending
oneself! America, Britain, Russia doing it. They are defending
themselves! Everyone has a right to defend.
Now once you say that one can run their own business however way
they please you cannot then interfere with that. Once you say one
can defend themselves legitimising whatever they do as self defence
then you cannot go on to accuse them of something else!
Hence when Indian Army continues fighting their own people in their
country, the UN cannot do anything. When Russians go on rampaging
Chechnya the UN stays mute. When Israel goes onto continue the
occupation and killing the UN only passes resolutions.
The same goes to all over the world. The contradictions are
systematic, systemic and symphonic at the UN and it is due to the
fact that the UN is an expression of capitalist socio-econo-political
system and hence like its mother system it cannot eradicate
contradiction.
That is why officially all nations are the same yet only five
members can veto anything and everything. That is why every member
says that they are going to obey the UN charters and declarations
yet the UN knows that they do not and yet it cannot do anything.
Why do the UN need human rights declarations because it knows its
members are the culprits that they themselves violate and infringe
all the human rights. Who else can violate human rights other than
the organisations that hold infinite amount of power over poor
citizens?
Hence like the globalised capitalism the old doctrine of sovereignty
has to be buried in the sand. There cannot be borders on this
planet. Borders mean violation of human rights, it means brutal
massacres taking place and all sorts of barbaric acts and lunatic
murders are carried out. The sovereignty is of the planet which is
gathered by the moral power and authority of humankind which can
only be used and utilised in promoting, supporting and nurturing
humanity. If that becomes the case Israel cannot continue occupying
Palestine and keep murdering everyday, Saddam or Mugabe will not be
able to brutalise and massacre his nation, Russians cannot do that
either. Further people who are then justifying more murders in the
name of liberty or freedom or vice versa thinking they are morally
right could not carry on doing that either!
No matter how we scream about human rights and civil liberties, for
the rights of children and women, for the rights of minorities and
migrant workers and the protection of the environment we are not
going to go anywhere. Human rights cannot be achieved sustaining
this old dead doctrine of sovereignty.
There cannot be any body or anybody sovereign on this planet but the
humankind that occupies it. There cannot be any body or anybody
bigger than the race that makes all the bodies and support them.
Hence the false uniqueness of nations and their so called
sovereignty is working against humanity.
This contradiction is getting us watch in utter helplessness the
murders and massacres of humanity, hunger and famines and all the
other horrors that are taking place! This old doctrine will have to
be change.
If we are at all serious about human rights and due process of law
and the principle of international law than we have to get up and
say it is time we accept that sovereignty as the power of humankind
in a universal manner where we are part of not a planet but an
infinite universe which must now be protected from violent abuse and
maltreatment eventually causing the humankind to perish.
This is a fact and not any part of fertile imaginative plot of a
science fiction. The Moon is on sale on a buy one get one free
basis, in a couple of years time space travel is taking place. Soon
there is going to be a time when major powers are going to try and
occupy the space and hence dominate the whole human race and
subjugate the whole planet and the solar system to their feet.
Hence let us be serious about it: let us stop pretending. Look at
this hypocrisy: all the members of the UN are the nations of the
world and without them there are not any nations left who could come
and attack these UN members. They all are together signing the UN
charter saying that they will not attack each other. If they mean it
and they give authority and power to the UN then why on earth then
they need to have a right to defend themselves! If no UN members
were to attack any other UN members who are they going to defend
themselves against!
That
is the contradiction, the irrationality. Moreover, this sovereignty
thing is an idiotic expression of muddled up diplomacy! Nations
cannot be sovereign. If any body can be sovereign on this planet it
is not even the UN but the humankind it claims to support! The
sovereignty is a ludicrous political and philosophical premise and
it is endangering the life and humanity itself. The whole planet is
facing collapse with regards to environmental catastrophe yet we see
the UN members, albeit, big ones, refusing to address this serious
issue that threatens the very life on earth! This cannot go on. It
is time the globalised capitalism to be brought to a halt and the UN
is forced to get out of the control of capitalism and so called
sovereignty!
The
whole planet is one as the whole humankind is one! We may live on
different parts of it, may speak a different languages, we follow
different religions, we may even eat different foods but our unity
is more fundamental than anything! This does not make us different.
Let us have the world communicating on an equal footing, let
everyone move about freely, let everyone living in such a way that
they are not dying of hunger, famine, torture or lack of medicine,
let everyone read newspapers, listen to radio stations and watch
televisions and read books written for them as thought they live in
one place whereby our human languages would begin to develop taking
in vocabularies from all the languages and soon there will be a
common language. This is how we developed all these so called
national languages because of our political structures and
mechanisms forcing people to conform for very many reasons and
advantages. Let the world come together defeating all forms of
hatred, prejudices and ignorance and then people will see a German
screams in pain exactly the way an Aboriginal Australian does, then
we can see a Jamaican dances like mad when he is happy like the very
way a Japanese does, then we shall see that when a Bangaali young
man is in love he goes to find a poetry book to express himself to
the woman the very way an Irish or Iranian young man would do. Then
we will see that when one becomes a father or mother they cry with
happiness whether they are black blue yellow white or speak English
or Beluch or Spanish or Hindi or Urdu! When something against
natural justice happens to a human being or even an animal any human
being becomes equally effected an impacted. When somebody hits a
Eureka moment: they scream out Eureka regardless what nation we
might afford them to be!
There
are no nations on this planet! These are all lies created by
indoctrination from our education system that does not know how to
teach! It puts all these lines in our head and we seem to lose the
power to see ration! When our arm is infected do we treat it as if
our head is Britain and the arm is America so we do not have to feel
the pain! When our brain is smashed do we treat it as if it was
Russia and the eyes are Saudi Arabia or India! How do we then
regulate the flow of blood! What country are we going to identify
our bloods as? How do we then name our oxygenation? What country
would that be! If we dream with our mind can other parts of our body
and being claim any ownership to that dream!
This
is serious! We have a moral duty to ask questions, moral imperative
to think for ourselves and force this confrontational old politics
and political philosophy to change course! We simply cannot choose
not to choose! Because if we fail to do something and then we find
Hitlers running the world then we have to take the responsibility
for those Hitlers appearing!
Everyone
is obliged to make moral choices without which we cannot claim
ownership to whatever happens and when we have no ownership to
whatever happens we cease to function or exist in a human level
because if GAP sells us stuff made from forced child labours in
India and we knowingly buy their stuff we
support the child labour and child slavery. So there is
always a choice. Even if we ask questions, express ideas and be the
wind to spread these ideas like dandelion seeds in this there is a
choice that we are making!
Do
we need encouragement? Dead bodies of all Palestinians, Israelis,
Bangaalis, Pakistanis, Indians, Kashmiris, Russians, Chechen,
Iraqis, British, Americans, Kurds, Hutus, Tutsis, Sudanese, Tamil,
Chinese, Germans, First world War, Second World War, The Holocaust,
The massacres in old Soviet Union, in the Chinese Cultural
Revolution and later, in Indo China, Bosnians, Croatian, Serbian and
God knows how many more we could name! In Africa! God what is
happening! What is not happening!
All
we are doing is witnessing massacres, murders, slaughter, child
labour, slavery, women sex trafficking, the migrant and illegal
immigrant trafficking!
All
this is happening because we look at a problem as a national
problem! We scream of immigration control as though our palm can be
controlled to receive regulated blood flows! When people are
starving, when people are forced with no hope of any sort of life or
living they will do anything to escape that and find a better way to
survive and live! No one can stop these people movement! This is not
the way! No one would leave their place of birth, where they have
their family and friends, their childhood, their schools, colleges,
their environment and known geography if they had things to eat,
that their children do not die of hunger, of ill health, of
malnutrition, that their elderly do not die of hunger, that they are
not tortured, that they are not murdered or that they have a say in
how they live their life! No one would live wherever they are if
they are living in natural justice! No one will live that special
place. But we do not live in natural justice!
And
nothing of that is possible when we are going to claim our so called
nationality, our so called sovereignty! Our so called difference!
We
are one! The whole of humanity is one and if anything can claim the
sovereign power on earth it is and has to be humanity. And nothing
is more worthy or powerful or moral or sacred on earth over this
entity, this humanity and for its own sake we have to just rise up
and say: yes, we are one and we must seek a philosophy and system
that brings us together and let us live as as one in peace and
harmony on this planet in this solar system over this Milky Way on
this Infinite Universe! In this scheme of things humanity is just a
toddler! Let us choose to let this toddler grow into its infancy,
let it be called a junior, let it be a teenager, let it grow to be
adult men and women, let it claim its merits and achieve its glory
and gather wisdom over millennia ahead! Let humanity find its course
in this cosmosian theatre of the Universe! Choose!
Go to Top
Connie
Fisher and Lee Mead New Favourite of Theatreland
The
public have voted reality TV stars Lee Mead and Connie Fisher as
Favourite Actor and Actress in this year’s lastminute.com
People’s Choice Theatre Awards*,
proving reality stars are still capturing the hearts of the nation
and are just the ticket for boosting West End sales.
Whilst
‘A’ list celebrities such as Christian Slater and Sienna Miller
gave the West End a much needed boost a couple of years ago, it
seems reality TV stars are now who the public prefer to see treading
the boards in their favourite shows.
The
phenomenal success of TV shows such as Any Dream Will Do and How To
Solve a Problem Like Maria, have given the public a chance to see
their screen idols in action and have also helped to put West End
theatre firmly back on the map. lastminute.com
has seen sales for musicals such as Joseph and Grease go through the
roof with ticket sales up over 50%
compared to this time last year.
The
rise of the reality star has also helped make theatre more
attractive than ever with younger audiences.
With many stars fast building up young fan bases and winners
such as Lee Mead proving popular with the ladies means teenagers are
opting to catch a show than go to a concert.
And with the price of a theatre ticket cheaper than most
concert tickets means going to the theatre is more affordable and
accessible than ever.
On winning his award, a surprised
Lee Mead said: 'It's really nice to be appreciated for what
you're doing...Thank you all who voted, its cool...my mum started
crying when I told her, she was really happy for me.'
Mark
Bower, Head of Theatre, lastminute.com said:
‘The public have voted and it would seem reality stars are
still the ‘People’s Choice’.
‘The
success of reality theatre TV shows has helped to make theatre
popular again and it’s great to see more younger faces in the
audience. You could say
these reality TV winners have helped bring theatre back to the
people making it accessible, cool and more talked about than
ever.’
Other
winners of the lastminute.com People Choice Theatre Awards include
Wicked for Best Musical, Equus for Favourite Play and Daniel
Radcliffe is the Actor most people would like to see make a return
to the stage. Over 16,000
people cast their votes in what is now the fifth lastminute.com
annual theatre awards.
Results
in full:
Favourite
Theatre Actress
Connie
Fisher - Sound of Music
Favourite
Pre-Theatre Restaurant
Defying
Gravity from Wicked
Favourite
Song from a Musical
Music
of the Night - Phantom Of The Opera
Person
the public would most like to see return to the stage
Poetry
Library New Events:
- BRIGHTON:
tall-lighthouse and THE SOUTH present... | 01-Nov-07
- The
Nineteenth Aldeburgh Poetry Festival | 02-Nov-07
- LONDON
SE8: Fresh - Poetry With A Beat | 02-Nov-07
- LONDON
WC2: La Langoustine est Morte | 03-Nov-07
- LONDON
SE1: Machado song cycle | 05-Nov-07
- LONDON
EC4: Poejazzi | 06-Nov-07
- LONDON
EC2: Paul Lyalls | 07-Nov-07
- CD
Wright | 07-Nov-07
- LONDON
N6: Poetry in the House | 08-Nov-07
- BRIGHTON:
Wolf Magazine night | 08-Nov-07
- LONDON
E1: Penned in the Margins | 08-Nov-07
- Richmond
Poetry Walk | 10-Nov-07
- LONDON
SE12: Elvis McGonagall, Aoife Mannix, John Citizen and Janice
Fixter | 10-Nov-07
- WALTERSTONE:
David Jones - Poetry and Film Day | 10-Nov-07
- LONDON
SW5: Between poem and play: dramatic monologues | 11-Nov-07
- Peter
Porter in conversation with Fiona Sampson at RSL | 12-Nov-07
- TWICKENHAM:
An evening with Chris Tutton | 13-Nov-07
- CAMBRIDGE:
CB1 Poetry | 13-Nov-07
- LONDON
SE1: Poetry Parlour | 13-Nov-07
- LONDON
W1: Apples and Snakes in Soho | 14-Nov-07
- LONDON
W6: An evening with Paul Durcan | 14-Nov-07
- MANCHESTER:
Matchbox Presents... | 14-Nov-07
- BATH:
Uni-Verse | 14-Nov-07
- OXFORD:
John Coffin Memorial Poetry Reading: Simon Armitage |
15-Nov-07
- BRIGHTON:
Jackie Williams | 15-Nov-07
- BATH:
Stand Up Poetry | 15-Nov-07
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Tate
Britain Happenings
On
Saturday 17 November, Tate Britain hosts the last of this
year’s BP Saturdays series with Loud Tate: Transmute. In
a fun-packed day created by Tate Forum for young people
between 13 and 25, different cultures will be celebrated
in a cross cultural fusion of art, music and performance.
Loud Tate will
bring together young people from local communities to
explore cultural difference through a variety of art
activities in the gallery, such as dance performances,
live music and trans-cultural political debates on the
themes of the day, managed by Tate Britain’s peer led
advisory group, Tate Forum.
A key event of the
day will be with Steak Zombies when creative interaction
will thrive between Tate Britain and the SESC cultural
centre in Sao Paulo, featuring simultaneous workshops
celebrating different crafts in a live bridge between the
cultures. Loud Tate will create a space that brings
together the two countries via a streamed video conference
over the internet.
The theme of
transmute will also be explored through musical responses
to Tate’s collection, as well as its current exhibitions
such as The Turner Prize: A Retrospective. A variety of
musical media will be performed including the band,
Autokratz, DJs The Coconut Twins and artists JME and
Skepta - Boy Better Know. Pan Intercultural Arts Society
will also be running a street songs performance, in which
young people from different cultural backgrounds will
perform songs about their lives, their immediate
surroundings and Tate Britain’s displays.
A series of games
will be played throughout the day, from Surrealist game
Exquisite Corpse to a giant game of Chinese Whispers, both
of which will be an opportunity to discover the breadth of
Tate’s collection and the diverse cultural influences on
the works within it.
Other highlights
will include a series of ‘hands on’ activities and
workshops such as the opportunity for young people to
create their own t-shirt designs, sculptures and
animation, all of which will be filmed by Tate Forum who
are creating their own documentary focusing on the themes
of transition and modification in cross cultural
communities.
BP Saturdays are a
series of free events celebrating the BP British Art
Displays (1500 – 2007) at Tate Britain. BP has
supported Collection Displays at Millbank since 1991,
first at the Tate Gallery and then from the opening of
Tate Britain in 2000 to the present. BP's continued
support, which was recently extended until 2012, allows
Tate Britain to create a broad and dynamic displays
programme which explores in depth British art from 1500 to
the present.
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-----------------------------------
Dehumanisation
of Humanity Volume I is Released
Poet's
Letter Editor Munayem Mayenin's philosophical works: Dehumanisation
of Humanity, Volume I (of IV), 511 pages, has just been released.
To
Buy
Go to Top
Buy
Munayem Mayenin's 4th Collection: Poetica Rainbow Ryder
Buy
from Amazon UK
Buy
Munayem Mayenin's 3rd Collection: The Geography of Time
Buy
from Amazon UK
Buy
Munayem Mayenin's 2nd Collection: The Son of Eternity
Buy
from Amazon UK
Go to Top
Poet's
Letter Authors/Poets/Singers Musicians/Artists
Sarah
Wardle
Philip
Ruthen
Malgorzata
Kitowski
Kerry-Fleur
Schleifer
Emily Davis
David
Pelling
Siobhan
Lennon
Maggie
Sullivan
Briony
Dennis
Inua
Ellams
Juli
Jeana
Tom
Chivers
Tricia
Peak
Go to Top |
Featured
Poets of the Month
Emily
Rainbow Davis
 Emily
Rainbow Davis grew up in
Charlottesville, Virginia. After a few years as an actor, (working/living
throughout the Southeastern United States and touring the US and Canada),
Emily moved to New York and started first a band, then a theatre company.
She also began to spend quite a bit of time in schools teaching theatre,
writing and music workshops for such companies as Brooklyn Academy of
Music (BAM) and Roundabout Theatre. Through Messenger Theatre Company (of
which she is the Artistic Director) her
plays Persephone and
The Great God Money were selected for FringeNYC in 2002 and 2005.
The Enemy was performed as part of Basil Twist’s Puppet Parlor at
HERE, BRIC Studios Sink or Swim series and THAW! Her work for children, The Adventures of Baba Yaga: Little Girl Stew got rave reviews in
the Canadian Fringe and the NYC Play Outside festival. The Lysistrata
adaptation she wrote for the Lysistrata Project was filmed by CNN (though
never aired) and written up in Voices:
The Journal of New York Folklore. Apart from her work with Messenger
Theatre, she was commissioned to write Where
the Beloved Are for St. Thomas church in the Virgin Islands and Daphne for Carnegie Mellon’s radio series. Her work has been read
and performed by Manhattan Theatre Source, Columbia Gorge Repertory
Theatre, Spring Theatreworks and Shalimar Productions. Other plays
include: The Kitchen Play, The
Golden Apple: For the Fairest, The Divine Bovine Tree, The Waiting Room and Daughters of Memory. As a singer/songwriter, she was a two time
musical guest on Sara Schaffer is Obsessed with
You. With her band,
Bright Red Boots, she played at such beloved New York venues as The Bitter
End and The Living Room. She studied poetry with Michael Klein at Sarah
Lawrence College, where she got her BA in Liberal Arts. Emily
recently completed her MFA in Dramatic Art (Directing) at University of
California, Davis and currently lives in London.
Sonnet to
Kissing 2
That is how you do
it. Just lip to lip.
Just resting softly, firmly two on two
Like holding a glass, taking a sip
Of freshly poured delicate morning dew .
Drinking in the essence of someone's breath
And offering up your own in exchange
Is enough for the heart to turn in its chest
Once you've done this, then explore the range
Of angle, of pressure, of curious tongue
Of distance, of teeth, of gums, of neck
This is the song that hasn't been sung
The soul kiss, the long kiss, the tongue kiss, the peck
O, holy lips, blessed breath, sacred tongue
To sing with the heart, the blood and lung.
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Kissing Lesson Sonnet
May I suggest a
gentle kiss, a brush,
A tapping, a placing of lip on lip.
A slow and sultry first approach, no rush
No urgency, man, when you run, you trip.
Now passion, my friend, is a different matter
If it surges up and makes you strong
That, I can tell you, is like cookie batter
It's sweet and intense but can't last too long.
Just please don't consume me like you're eating
A steak, a pie, a burger or a scone
Such force and power is self-defeating
Treat my lips, sweet boy, like an ice cream cone.
Your lips, in silence, have much to say
If you would only get out of your way.
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For Happiness
For some reason, I
do not think Happy
Is a compliment. What could that mean?
It's like I somehow think happy is sappy
Or stupid or ignorant naïve teen.
Happy isn't cool or disaffected
It's not ironic or wry or clever
It's not edgy, bold or disconnected
It's more a bear rolling around in heather.
Happy is sugar or honey in milk
It's cupcakes and peach pie and baking bread
Happy is cotton and somehow not silk
It's a brighter, not darker shade of red.
For all of the trappings that happiness
Is, I'd rather have happy than crappiness.
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Colour
I married him in
Little Rock.
The wedding was a lot like our prom
except I wore white instead of salmon
and Daddy hired someone to take pictures
instead of blinding us with the flash on his instamatic.
On MomandDad's mantle piece
the best prom photo is on the right
and our wedding portrait is on the left.
My colorblind cousin Elsie is the only one who can tell them apart.
We were happy
or at least we smiled a lot.
I would cook eggs and toast in the morning
grilled cheese in the afternoon
and hamburgers at night -
if I remembered to thaw them.
I thought I was loving him with each bite that passed those familiar dark
lips and
he ate everything grinning.
He noticed when I
changed eye-shadow
or switched stockings.
He marveled at the maroon on my lips
and the green in my eyes.
Then I found him
in the tiger-eye brown he'd bought for me,
squeezed into my peach silk nylons,
pushing the seams of my beige tinted blouse.
He was standing in the bathroom, adjusting a cotton breast
when I walked in.
The thing was, he
was beautiful.
There were colors in his eyes I'd never seen -
his lips, made for a fork, were lines that curved like
MomandDad's hand-carved headboard.
I wanted to kiss them but also
break them open
to find all the love I'd watched slide through.
I tried to stay
to scramble his eggs
to toast his bread
to wash his forks
but I couldn't look at him - even in a plain grey suit -
without being blinded by color.
His eyes were too brown, his lips too red
and I had been loving a stranger.
I went home to
Little Rock
with my eyes closed.
When I told MomandDad I left
because I'd been sleeping with someone else,
I wasn't really lying.
As they listed the
ten commandments,
I imagined myself on the mantlepiece
frozen and smiling
framed in silver
looking into the eyes I knew in black and white.
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Inventory
2 beds
2 teddy bears
2 chests of drawers, one orange, one cream
2 toy chests
2 closets with clothes - revolving clothes that cycled by where they were
left dirty and discarded
1 blue tutu
2 kitchens
1 bathroom
1 outhouse
2 bookshelves
2 record players
2 parents
2 quiet kitchen tables - 1 with leaves, the other with a sticky dark
finish
2 porches
2 backyards, one that never seemed to end
1 bicycle I never learned to ride
1 big wheel that ground its wheels on the gravel road
2 sets of CLUE rarely played. One of the two of us must be the murderer
and if it's not you, it's me
2 pairs of neighborhood kids
2 cars
several ways home
two dogs
five cats
a fish
a goat
a cow
a snake skeleton my mother kept in a cigar box
Two bats that my mother chased around my room with a broom and one that
lay dying on the back porch bricks
One glowing pair of possum eyes in the dark
Two houses, One with plumbing
One wood stove that went cold by morning
One window seat
One garden with groundhogs and a shotgun
One onion patch with father and salt shaker
One falling down barn with hornets nest
One rolltop desk with china doll tea set, stolen
One pantry for food and changing tampons
One tin roof for puncuating rain
One telephone
One rasberry patch
Two pear trees
One wedding, Another coupling
One hour of therapy
One cello, one viola, one violin, one guitar, one piano
One Sunday afternoon tuning song
One sketchbook with a pen drawing of a backyard
Two sets of Silence
Two recurring nightmares
Two lullabies
One life of impermanence
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Island Haiku
Mangos are falling
They "thunk" when they hit the road
They're hard to catch
Lizard on the
screen
Its underbelly shadowed
Climbing toward the sun
Sea turtle eating
Sweet underwater grasses
He comes up for air
Koki frogs singing
Filling up the air with sound
Dreaming like they're birds
Emily Rainbow
Davis
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iBELONG
Britain
’s
hosting of the 2012 Olympics is great news for sports fans.
But the diversion of massive Lottery funding to the Olympic cause
is bad news for a host of organisations across the
UK
- including arts societies, amateur dramatic groups and local choirs -
many of whom rely on Lottery grants for invaluable resources.
Now arts lovers can give their favourite society or am-dram group
the chance to star, with www.ibelonguk.com,
the website that helps them raise funds for their nominated cause while shopping
online.
“The
Olympics will be a fantastic spectacle, but one that costs a great deal of
money, and diverting Lottery funding away from other good causes will have
a strong impact,” said iBelongUK founder, Brian Hewitt.
“Whilst
supporters may wish to do their bit to help the show go on, it’s not
always easy to find the spare cash to do so. With iBelongUK they don’t
have to – they simply shop online as usual, and the retailers they shop
with contribute a percentage of the amount they spend to the shopper’s
nominated cause. It’s a
no-cost, hassle-free way of raising money and helping to plug the Lottery
funding gap.”
Online
fundraising
opportunities will be particularly strong in the lead-up to Christmas,
with more and more of us choosing to do our Christmas shopping via the
Internet. British consumers
spent over £7.5 billion online in the 10 weeks leading up to Christmas
2006, and the Interactive Media in Retail Group estimates that this may
double in 2007.
iBelongUK
is free to join, and gives access to over 600 of the leading retailers and
service providers in the country including John Lewis, Early Learning
Centre, Carphone Warehouse,
Mark
s
& Spencer, Amazon, eBay, Dixons and Boots.
Members register and nominate their favourite good cause.
They can then access the retailers’ sites via www.ibelonguk.com
and shop as normal, paying the same price as other online shoppers and
enjoying all the usual benefits of shopping online – while raising money
for their particular cause.
Up
to 15% of the cost of the transaction is paid to the shopper’s nominated
cause and – as an added bonus - an equal amount is paid into the shopper’s
ibelonguk.com account. They can take this as cash or exchange it for other
goods and services from affiliated retailers.
Or they can donate these additional funds to the arts society,
choir, amateur dramatic group etc that they wish to support.
To
join as a shopper, or to register an organisation with the site, visit www.ib-longuk.com
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Hearing
Eye
After many years of generous Arts Council England (London) support,
Hearing Eye, like a good number of similar literary organizations, has
lost its core funding due to pressure from financing the Olympics. This
comes at a time when the press is seeing huge successes in its books and
pamphlets. Anna Robinson's Songs from the Flats and Linda Black's The
Beating of Wings have both been PBS Pamphlet Choices. Linda also won the
New Writing Ventures Award in 2006, Valeria Melchioretto won it in 2005
and Jacqueline Gabbitas was on the 2007 shortlist.
Hearing Eye is a small independent publishers established in 1987. It has
published books and pamphlets by award-winning poets such as E A Markham,
Richard McKane, John Heath Stubbs, Mario Petrucci and Jane Duran. John
Rety and Susan Johns have worked tirelessly and voluntarily for the last
20 years with over a hundred authors to produce inspiring, beautiful
books. At the centre of Hearing Eye, and its performance venue the
Torriano Meeting House, is a community of writers and artists determined
to ensure the press continues. This is one such event.
All money raised will go to Hearing Eye and will help them in the short
term to continue to produce quality poetry books and pamphlets, and to
promote new voices and ambitious and stimulating poetry.
Hearing Eye is important because not only does it stand for an independent
voice in a publishing world browbeaten by marketing departments, bookshop
chains and celebrity status, but it gives many talented poets a foot on
the right ladder, in the right direction, at the right time.
with generous support/sponsorship from:
Blackheath Poetry Society, Blang Records, Brittle Star, Catford Print
Centre, Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadeour, Fourth Friday, Heather
Angel, Morning Star, Mslexia, Les Murray, New Writing Ventures, Poetry
London, Poetry pf, The Poetry School, Second Light, Silbercow, Social
Spider, Franco Staffa - MBE, The Literary Consultancy, TWiN ... to be
continued
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Torriano Poetry
Competiton: Closing Date Friday 9th November 2007
Adjudicators:
Katherine Gallagher & June English (all poems will be read by both
adjudicators)
No entry form required:
• Poems up to a maximum of 40 lines each to be typed on a single side of
A4 paper
• A separate sheet of A4 should contain the titles of poems, name, land
and email addresses and phone number of entrant
• Entry fees: £3 one poem, £5 for two, £10 for five. Cheques payable
to the Torriano Support Fund
Entries to:
Diana Baggs, 1 Havelock Road, Walmer, Deal, Kent CT14 7TE
Enquiries:
Tel: 01304 372914 or email: june.english@btinternet.com
Closing Date:
Friday 9th November 2007. Winners will be notified by 7th January 2008.
Winning poets – first, second and third – will be offered feature
readings at the adjudication celebrations on Sunday 2nd March 2008 at
Torriano Meeting House.
The winning poems will also be featured in Brittle Star magazine.
First Prize £250 Second Prize £150 Third Prize £75
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PIONEERING
STUDENTS COME TO LEICESTER TO EXPLORE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS FOR
CREATIVE WRITING
De Montfort University (DMU) is welcoming students from around the world
as they come to Leicester this week for five days intense study on campus
as part of a unique Masters degree in Creative Writing and New Media.
The course, which is mostly undertaken online, explores innovative
technologies as a medium for creative writing and draws on the specialist
areas of its staff at the forefront of research and practice in areas such
as transliteracy, digital fiction, and creative non-fiction.
The Masters attracted global attention from the literary and media world
in its first year when in February it partnered publishing giant Penguin
Books UK to create the first ever wiki novel: a groundbreaking experiment
in collaborative writing. Anyone, anywhere in the world was able to join
in writing and editing the novel.
Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media at DMU who runs the MA, said:
"Most of the students are already professional writers or just
beginning their writing careers; but they all show an interest in learning
about new media. They are interested in how new technologies can be
harnessed to develop new kinds of writing as well as enhance their current
professional writing."
The MA can be completed in either one or two years, and students on the
course come from as far afield as Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Japan and
Canada, and have a diverse range of literary backgrounds including a
composer, several international journalists; members of the British
Society of Authors and The Poetry Society Chris Meade, who is in the
second year of studying the MA, and has recently left his post as the
Executive Director of Booktrust to become the co-Director of the Institute
for the Future of the Book.
Chris Meade said: "The course has been life changing for me; it
turned me on to the creative potential of new media for literature. I
realised I wanted to work with writers and readers at this moment of
change for the world of words, so l was delighted to be asked to join the
Institute for the Future of the Book, currently based in Brooklyn, New
York, and keen to develop its work in the UK. "
Apart from this week when they join together on campus in Leicester city
centre, the students will study the rest of the course from their homes
and offices around the world, with a variety of technology including
tutorials in Second Life. They will be trialling some experimental tools
in creative writing and technology to aid their study.
More information about the eight new students on this year's MA can be
found at: http://www.hum.dmu.ac.uk/blogs/cwnm/students_20078/
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Short
Story:
Clarenden
Sharon
Harriott
It
would rain at the same time every afternoon. You said it would be great if
you could time the rain in England like that, that way you’d never be
dashing out to the line, nearly breaking a leg to save the washing.
Nan
and Granddad’s house sat snug in the Jamaican hills of Clarenden,
Manchester. Surrounded by trees and foliage it was set well back from the
potholed road which ran from Mandeville at the bottom to Christiana at the
top. Only affording lengthily spaced visits, we’d stay for four weeks,
which Roy Jnr, Dawn and I would spend in the hills, and gullies of
Clarenden turning from honey brown to caramel.
Stepping
out from the shaded veranda after the rain shower, the air would envelope
me in a warm damp blanket, making my skin prickle with perspiration. It
also made my hair extra thick and woolly. It strained at the elastic I’d
forced it into, refusing to take any shape I wanted it to. It was only
after the cousins took me to the local hair dresser and stood for two
hours with me while my hair was plaited into neat rows that I could forget
the money I’d spent on chemicals to make my hair as straight as yours.
Being
one of only two white women in the family, I’d watched you all morning
bustling with my aunts around the stove, then on the veranda peeling
vegetables. It was at gatherings like these you’d learned about our
family. Some of which we could pass on our way to the supermarket and
never know. You learned to cream our skins every day with cocoa butter to
keep away the ash. This was actually a great relief to me as it saved
nightly bath-time tantrums as Dad chased Dawn and I around the house, his
labourers’ hands full of Vaseline. You’d noted that putting the rice
in the kidney bean water gave the rice and peas that distinctive ‘soul
food’ colouring. Your ackee and salt fish was never better. I was never
sure if it was because the food was fresh from the earth, or that it was
prepared with love and laughter, or if it was simply the fact that
conglomerate supermarkets were kept ignorant of a secret something, but
everything had flavour.
London’s
a tasteless place by comparison. Even in the midst of such variety, the
hotpot was bland. Either everything was from the same mould, or else so
different as to be ridiculous. Life was a constant tube ride, faces
whizzing past from stop to stop and constantly moving to one’s
destination as fast as was economically viable.
It
was nearing the end of our holiday. That time when you could feel the
encroaching wrench, but didn’t want to dwell on it so as to spoil the
days that were left. Dawn and I had walked up the gravel path to the gate
to watch the men traipsing down the potholed hill.
It was seven in the morning, a time that if I were in London I
would be bashing my snooze button. The air was cool and slightly damp with
dew. It would warm up and dry out in a few hours. And by midday, if you
stood on the road and looked down the hill, you could see the heat-haze
from the odd corrugated iron roof making spots like portals to another
universe.
The
young men were walking to work. They were going to the fields with their
machetes to cut down banana or dig up Coco and Yam. Some were going to the
market with sacks of fresh food or animals slung over their donkey. Every
so often they’d wave to another veranda, with a hail of “Mornin’
Sis!” and “A ‘right Neville!” even the ones obscured by Avocado
trees, or Pimento.
After
a breakfast of cornmeal porridge Dad, Roy Jnr, Granddad and the uncles
gathered under the house smoking, chopping the root from yam and the legs
off chickens. When the man arrived with the goat, you took us for a walk.
With the sound of the Aunts laughter behind us, we followed your sturdy
sandals down the side of the house and through the huge yellowing green
leaves of the banana trees. Years ago, dodging invisible lizards, dad had
pointed out the boundaries of Granddad’s land to us, the top of a hill
there, a tree there; and the gully at the bottom with an unmeasured crack
in the earth. Dad had frightened us with stories of other caves in the
area that had swallowed curious children who were never found again. But
hidden, we could only see green for miles and miles. And as we gazed up
into the canopy of the trees we spotted huge Jack fruits hanging like
prickly pillows. We imagined the birds and insects waiting amongst the
trees for the first signs of its ripeness.
I
saw you flinch slightly at the scream. It jarred against the green cocoon
around us. I knew you had been dreading the sound, and imagined the animal
in pain. If you could, you would fill the house with hoboes, mending
feathers and laying out mince. In fact, it was the sound of a skilled
hand. The sound had a shortened quality to it, as if it had been cut off
mid frequency. Although it was fearful, it was painless.
For
those that hadn’t believed you’d stay the test, you could now thumb
your nose at them. Whether it was a deep founded loathing for all things
white, or just ignorance of your personality, it didn’t matter. For
every one of the thirty years of your marriage, you’d seen the respect
grow and the bigotry subside. You believed they’d accepted you, and to a
point, I agreed. But, what of your
father? What of his aversion to
his black grandchildren?
I
met you for lunch one day with it playing on my mind. “So you’ve had
him for, how long since Nan died?” I’d asked.
“Fifteen
years,” you said.
“And
not once has he said thank you for sleeping on the floor for two years,
for converting your whole house, and life. You’ve never made it an issue
and just cooked and cleaned for him. Even though he made your childhood a
misery while trying to bash you over the head with a bible.”
You
just shrugged at me, dipping your bread in your prawn cocktail sauce. But
your eyes were glassy.
“He’s
my father,” you said, simply.
I
could see the way he looked at your sister. Her with her blond hair and
blue eyes, her blond-haired ‘angels’ and
the-divorce-never-to-be-mentioned. You could almost say his look was
comical when she made the effort to visit. His eyes blinking and his grin
so wide I thought his false teeth would pop out.
“Do
you still wonder?” I’d asked. “Why she’s the favourite, even
though she’s the divorced one, and the one with three kids with two
dads? I mean, as he’s on such a moral high ground and all?”
You’d
not taken your coat off, and you sat straight, one hand in your lap.
“I’ll find out when he’s dead. Not before.”
I
could imagine that without him to look after, and the bills to pay and
three unruly children taking their toll, you’d have held your looks.
Your black hair was peppered grey now. In pictures of the seventies
you’d worn it long, falling down your back. Your high cheekbones and
pretty eyes were lovely. Your face was softer now. And it wasn’t in your
nature to colour your hair, preferring to spend the money on the family.
Your brown eyes and your brown skinned children were so different from
your sister’s.
He
knew your loyalty. I think my own anger stemmed from the complacency of
his knowledge. Growing up, and being the oldest child, you were always the
dependable one. Carol was the rebel, and proud of it even now. It was her
that told me about slipping out after bed to go clubbing in Streatham.
But, for some reason the favour was shifted. You fell in love with a black
man. I guess when it came down to it he never forgave you.
Maybe
he never actually tried to hide his hatred. When you were courting dad he
made him wait at the gate, not wanting a black man in his house. But as
English as we were, we kept silent and bore his patriarchy. But only for
you. His ignorant beliefs kept him silent at the dinner table, his mouth
slightly askew. I would like to believe it was also a fear of losing you.
I’d
made sure I’d packed our boots when I drove you and dad to the cemetery.
In some parts the water went up to my ankles, the mud sucking at my heels.
I counted nine of us: Dad and you, Dawn and Roy, Carol and her three,
David, Tracey and Robert. You could find out now.
“Will
you do it?” I’d asked at the graveside. Dad would normally have taken
one of the gravedigger’s shovels and tipped dirt on top of the coffin.
He’d already done it for his own mother, and two of his sisters. The
gesture of it had suddenly dawned on me.
You
just nodded. You’d photocopied and framed an old picture of Nan and
Granddad to put on the grave. They were standing stiffly outside a
teahouse, Nan in a royal blue coat, her grey hair swept back from her
face. She held a shiny black bag in the crock of her arm and I could see
liver spots on her cheeks and the back of her hand. Granddad stood just as
stiffly. His coat was smooth and straight, leather gloves covering his
hands. His eyes where hidden behind dark sunglasses.
You were nothing like them.
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