Swirl — Constance Bacchus ( Spring 2021)

When the big machines of publicity publishing were put on public health hiatus, the ensuing space opened a channel for other voices.

Devoted readers discovered hitherto unseen landscapes filled with vibrant voices. So it is with Constance Bacchus’ chapbook Swirl. Published via Kindle, this lovely volume features 14 poems United in topic, creating a connective sequence that can be read as a whole. While each poem has a title, they might also be viewed as chapters, or moments in an overarching perception of storms in the Pacific Northwest.

Bacchus’ poems are subtle, adept and elegant: this is especially evident in the poems

“the wind has started

/oh she is”(10) and “do you have rain today or wish you did”(12).

In “the wind […]”, Bacchus employs the forward slash mid line, so that the reader gets a sense of slowed time, of physical perception in space:

“walk to the water/

one ear looking up

&the other just alkaline/

polite, listen, soft”(10)

The reader absorbs the synesthesia as a whole body perception that is reinforced by the assonance of walk, water and alkaline, as well of that of one, looking, other, polite, soft. There’s a sense of meditation in these poems, of unity with the elements. In “do you have rain today […]”, Bacchus uses a double column in the poem, which immediately offers multiple ways of reading the poem in sequence—across or in columns. Reading the poem both across and in columns reveals multiple perceptions, and allows the reader to experience this seemingly prosaic event in multiple ways—as if the poem insists on a whole presence, a thorough soaking.

One line, “does the ocean even know love w/care” is especially multi-directional, as the left column gives an urban image with silence or a pause from the column on the right. Bacchus’ construction in these poems is both sophisticated and charming. The poems give a full presence and observation to what many might overlook. The devoted reader of poetry ought not to overlook this lovely and quenching book.

Amazon.com: swirl (9798501606623): bacchus, constance: Books

-Su Zi

Day Five

Garden Sketch by Dave Green

Apologies

Through the winter dark when frost bit,
and the ground was iron-hard,
when the guns cracked and dogs snarled,
and spades dug deep to earth and sett,
I clenched my fists in anger.

Through the winter dark ,
beneath the tree before the house,
the tree festooned with bird food,
I left gifts for the others, the pariahs,
bread, fruit, nuts, cheese, a bowl of biscuit,

and the tracks to the tree from hedge and stream,
the paths through the meadow were plain to see.

And now on the brink of summer,
they still come and wait in the dusk,
fox with unblinking eyes,
badger beneath the poplars by the stream,
marten in the hornbeam.

I see them later when I have closed the door,
sometimes before, fearless,
accepting the small gift,
the poor payment for persecution.

Strange how it fills the heart full
to watch a beech marten
struggling to master an apple
bigger than its own head.

-Jane Dougherty

Bios and Links

-Dave Green

lives and works in Sheffield.  For 30 years he worked in education with vulnerable and neurodiverse children before belatedly discovering that recent governments may not be prioritizing the marginalized in society.  Now he trains people in positive mental health and how to recover from the pandemic.  He writes poems, paints, chops logs, cycles everywhere and shops local.

-Simon Zec

Day Four

Garden Pencil by Dave Green

Bios and Links

-Dave Green

lives and works in Sheffield.  For 30 years he worked in education with vulnerable and neurodiverse children before belatedly discovering that recent governments may not be prioritizing the marginalized in society.  Now he trains people in positive mental health and how to recover from the pandemic.  He writes poems, paints, chops logs, cycles everywhere and shops local.

-Simon Zec

Day Three

Flowers Pastel by Dave Green

My Many Random Acts of Wildness

3. A Clock Watch

When clock parts of the lion’s tooth are blown
apart, I see first and second hand their
fertility flight numbers broadcast sown
gusted chaotic in warm summer’s air.

The exploded mechanism flits over
close cut lawns, weeded borders, neatly
fenced, dips over powerhosed driveways, stir
of cats on rooftops, prey hunting sweetly.

Organic time tamed, all about decay
not growth. Imagine accurate time based
on a gradually emerging way.
However, all things reduce to waste.

Our Dandelion’s blown clocks are seeds.
to be uprooted as unwanted weeds.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-Dave Green

lives and works in Sheffield.  For 30 years he worked in education with vulnerable and neurodiverse children before belatedly discovering that recent governments may not be prioritizing the marginalized in society.  Now he trains people in positive mental health and how to recover from the pandemic.  He writes poems, paints, chops logs, cycles everywhere and shops local.

-Simon Zec

Day Two

Flowers by Dave Green

My Many Random Acts of Wildness

2. A Clock Watch

When clock parts of the lion’s tooth are blown
apart, I see first and second hand their
fertility flight numbers broadcast sown
gusted chaotic in warm summer’s air.

The exploded mechanism flits over
close cut lawns, weeded borders, neatly
fenced, dips over powerhosed driveways, stir
of cats on rooftops, prey hunting sweetly.

Organic time tamed, all about decay
not growth. Imagine accurate time based
on a gradually emerging way.
However, all things reduce to waste.

Our Dandelion’s blown clocks are seeds.
to be uprooted as unwanted weeds.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-Dave Green

lives and works in Sheffield.  For 30 years he worked in education with vulnerable and neurodiverse children before belatedly discovering that recent governments may not be prioritizing the marginalized in society.  Now he trains people in positive mental health and how to recover from the pandemic.  He writes poems, paints, chops logs, cycles everywhere and shops local.

-Simon Zec

Day One

Bird Feeder by Dave Green

Nature doesn’t need a theme

I took a detour through the downs
To seek the inspiration
The spring greens
Shafts of blue
Floating fields in the wind

Vertical vines disrupt the downs
Bowing to their Mecca
With dreams of the new champagne

Bended boughs push the limits of their strength
Debris drenched in the road
The truck rattled on its haunches

The inspiration filled my eyes
As the words blew around my brain
I spot a place to stop
Scribe them down
Before they float away

Nature doesn’t need a theme
Or an overarching narrative
It doesn’t have an end
It just is

-Simon Zec

My Many Random Acts Of Wildness:

1. Lawn Cutting

Wife likes our lawn to be cut in straight lines.
A mute boy next door in fascination
Keenly watches the geometric times
I reach the edge, marks the delineation.

He has a toy lawnmower of his own.
Sometimes his mam kindly allows him grip
her hands on their mower, grass mown
by both, her feet follow his as they strip

the wildness out of their lawn. His toy won’t
cut grass but safely glides over its length,
so he stamps and bawls when his world don’t
conform to his straight lines, because it’s bent.

My wife says “Better” to our short shorn lawn.
We all want the wild to be uniform.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-Dave Green

lives and works in Sheffield.  For 30 years he worked in education with vulnerable and neurodiverse children before belatedly discovering that recent governments may not be prioritizing the marginalized in society.  Now he trains people in positive mental health and how to recover from the pandemic.  He writes poems, paints, chops logs, cycles everywhere and shops local.

-Simon Zec