Louise Glück, in her essay Invitation and Exclusion^[1], argues for poetry that requires a listener or a reader rather than that which is merely overheard, contrasting Eliot, whose ‘cri du coeur craves a listener who becomes, by virtue of his absorption, [the poet’s] collaborator’ with Wallace Stevens: ‘Stevens’ meditative poems are not addressed outward; they are allowed to be overheard’.  Some readers regard the work of W.S. Graham, with its enduring preoccupation with language, as metapoetry, exclusive because it is concerned with the writing of poetry, rather than with the world.  This is very far from the truth as can be demonstrated from an analysis of The Nightfishing, pivotal in the poet’s career. Graham’s poem is about the sea, about the real sea, ‘a grey green sea, not a chocolate box sea’, a poem which he hoped would make ‘somebody seasick ( a good unliterary measurement)’;^[2] it is…

I have a dream
Of all earth’s children
Cherished and loved
Fed and clothed
Happy and safe
Free to fantasize and play
Allowed to dream
Educated to think for themselves
Regardless of gender, faith or colour
Free to choose whatever their hearts desire

Free to laugh
Free to love
Free to live

©RedCat

This year poetry month has an extra day. A May Day Special.

To read all poems inspired by Kerfe Roig’s artwork Full Of Children go to The Wombwell Rainbow.

A Rainbow Future After the Storm

Soft dove clouds transform to dolphin dark,
again change, and roaring black wolves
pounce

with a flash, then
the shrouded monochrome world becomes a tapestry,

a multitude of shape, color, hues. Here, a strand of azure,
here, emerald-green, glistening with diamond sparkle, woven
under and over

embroidered with the vibrant wishes of children—blue horses, red deer,
twinkling golden stars, a spotted purple dog, a striped-orange cat—

a collection, a connection of
smiling faces brighter than the sun,
dream of a rainbow future–
after the storm has passed.

There was a mixup with the images, so Kerfe has been given her own day! So, this is Day 31 of the challenge, Kerfe Day. You can read the rest of the poems here. Once again, thank you to all the artists and poets. It’s been a wonderful, creative challenge.

I don’t know why, but…

Today I have invited David Bleiman to drop in to reflect upon a poem from his unique collection,This Kilt of Many Colours, (Dempsey and Windle, 2021).

Have you noticed how, long after a people have been cleared by war, migration and the wash of history, the name of their place persists? Why do we, hundreds of years later, still call the place by the name which was given by the people we have replaced?

My poem Place markers looks at examples from different countries. The USA is full of places which retain their native American names, or some distorted version thereof. I take Manhattan and Chicago as prominent examples. Nearer my Scottish home, the mysterious Picts, who left no writing and little language, hang on in carved stones and the names of places.

Like many of the poems in this collection, I come back to my own…