Under the frost and ice moons don’t despair The maidens quickening is soon near The winds turning warm and fair Singing budding spring for all to hear
In the grove of skeletal birch don’t feel sorrow Let the cold silver moonlight shadows spear Beneath the snow hides the seeds of tomorrow Let purple blue moonlight guide souls vision here
When the world is frozen, ice, snow, white Listen to what intuition hears Teeming life comes back with the light Spring’s awakening is soon near
I’m revelling in the fact that Stockholm is white and covered in snow. I chase blinding sunlight on snow whenever it’s there. The lengthening days are noticeable. Still in the core of most northerners lies the longing for spring.
All I have is memories of memories –like feathers, plucked and swirling –the fires they lit at the end,in places that had been kept darkfor years. Dancing. My fatherhanding over hollowed bread,a telegram that broke a woman. Bodies in the water. The horses, being led away,through the farm gate. Lost. A city full of women. […]
This feature is dedicated to the memory of Harry Hilgrove Lucas(1913 – 1991) who first taught me Old Occitan at Nottingham University and introduced me to the poetry of the troubadours (Ed.)
*****
The poems featured below have been translated from Old Occitan, also commonly known as Old Provencal, by Rennie Parker. The work of the troubadours and their female equivalents, the trobairitz, appeared in the South of France in the eleventh century and, from there, their influence spread across much of Europe and lasted for centuries. You can find more information here. As lyric poetry, these poems were intended to be sung and many musical settings are available on platforms such as YouTube and Spotify.
If you already enjoy, or would like to find out more about medieval music, a good place to start would be this version of ‘Farai un…
Victoria Chang’s collection of mostly prose poetry, Obit, published by Copper Canyon Press, calls on a literary tradition of loss that builds from the poets whom Chang references such as Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, and I would say more modern poets like Sharon Olds and even Ted Kooser in his discussion of the loss of his father. Chang is a Los Angeles-based poet who has reached that time in her life when she must deal with the death of the previous generation, and Obit is simultaneously about that loss and the strange position those who mourn are put into.
With the gravity of loss, any other concern seems trivial and moving on with one’s life seems wrong. She discusses that emotion most directly in “The Doctors” where she writes, “To yearn for someone’s quick death seems wrong. To go to the hospital cafeteria and hunch over a table…
1) Please describe your latest book, what about your book will intrigue the readers the most, and what is the theme, mood?
Catrice: I am working on my first chapbook publication. I expect this to be a selection across topics. I have several books planned. The books planned beyond that one are specifically themed. Themes I write about are a broad span of Spirituality, transcendence, trauma, consent, disability, healing,mental health, love, the environment, human nature, the cosmos, ancestral topics, cultural traditions, identity, dialect, food & culture, Orishas, and music I often weave my love of the sciences, math, astronomy, astral travel, biblical spiritual references, and futurism into my work.
-Marcel Herms “We Are Little Children Of The Sea Kleurets”
Frost and Ice Moons
Under the frost and ice moons don’t despair
The maidens quickening is soon near
The winds turning warm and fair
Singing budding spring for all to hear
In the grove of skeletal birch don’t feel sorrow
Let the cold silver moonlight shadows spear
Beneath the snow hides the seeds of tomorrow
Let purple blue moonlight guide souls vision here
When the world is frozen, ice, snow, white
Listen to what intuition hears
Teeming life comes back with the light
Spring’s awakening is soon near
The light escapes, invisible colours bounce off the trees. This wood is a trick, its layers repeat into the distance in a tangled blur. Each tree is a prism that splits into many trees. This is the forest of silence, no tracks or trails. Keep your coat close, breathe to make clouds of warmth and stride deep into this new dimension.
-Hilary Otto
Response to KRFeb 3 “Winter Forest,” KRFeb3, “What grows here,” MH, “We are little children of the sea”
Wishes in the Snow
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow, into the birch forest, there by the trees, where blood bloomed like flowers, red in the snow— and I wondered if we’d be caught first–or freeze.
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow– Manya whispered stories of when women were fish, and as the cold wind continued to blow, she told of sea-blue wonders and a come-true wish
of times and people long ago— before the snow.
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow, and I wished for roses, sunshine, birds, sheep, but we were here, and where would we go? Where would we find food, a warm place to sleep?
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow, and I dreamed of butterflies, apples, the song of thrush and soft owl hoots, the way a river flows in spring, and fish swim in it all along
the way to the sea, where maybe we could be—
but we’ve run so far, out into the snow, now Manya says, “Look, there’s a house ahead,” inside, no people, only gifts bestowed– a sea-scene painted, a rose, and a loaf of bread.
-Merril D Smith
what grows here
Yes, a snake, a bat, a roach but also a chrysalis and butterflies. If a bear stands in the woods and no one sees him he is still there. To show off his thousand points of flowers the buck stops here.
-Holly York
Winter Forest. – KR3F
A Winter Forest, leafless, barren, trees with snow. Which way shall I go ?
2,Feb,2021 for the third of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Kerfe Roig.
What Goes Here. – KR3F
What goes here I ask. Deer, bear, rabbit, beetle, bat, butterfly, flowers.
2,Feb,2021 for the third of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Kerfe Roig.
is an artist working in glass, metal, fibre and paint. Sometimes her work is based on photographs, but more often, she creates in the moment. She loves to play with texture and colour.
is a Dutch visual artist. He is also one of the two men behind the publishing house Petrichor. Freedom is very important in the visual work of Marcel Herms. In his paintings he can express who he really is in complete freedom. Without the social barriers of everyday life. There is a strong relationship with music. Like music, Herms’ art is about autonomy, freedom, passion, color and rhythm. You can hear the rhythm of the colors, the rhythm of the brushstrokes, the raging cry of the pencil, the subtle melody of a collage. The figures in his paintings rotate around you in shock, they are heavily abstracted, making it unclear what they are doing. Sometimes they look like people, monsters, children or animals, or something in between. Sometimes they disappear to be replaced immediately or to take on a different guise. The paintings invite the viewer to join this journey. Free-spirited.
He collaborates with many different authors, poets, visual artists and audio artists from around the world and his work is published by many different publishers.
RedCat’s love for music and dance sings clearly in The Poet’s Symphony (Raw Earth Ink, 2020). Passion for rhythms and rhymes, syllabic feets and metres. All born out of childhood and adolescence spent reading, singing, dancing and acting.
Her writing spans love, life, mythology, environment, depression and surviving trauma.
Originally from the deep woods, this fiery redhead now makes home in Stockholm, Sweden, where you might normally run into her dancing the night away in one of the city’s techno clubs.
is a historian and poet. She lives in southern New Jersey, where she is inspired by her walks along the Delaware River. She’s the author of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fevers of the Mind.
-Godefroy Dronsart
is a writer, teacher, and musician currently residing near Paris. His poetry has appeared in Lunar Poetry, PostBLANK, Paris Lit Up, The Belleville Park Pages, and Twin Pies Literary among others. His first chapbook, “The Manual” (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020), explores the space between poetry, prose, and gamebooks. He has a sweet tooth for all things experimental, modernist, and strange. Follow him on Twitter and his Bandcamp for electronic explorations.
-Joy Fleming
Born in County Down, Joy has studied, mothered and worked in Scotland since 1980. Brief excursions to follow her heart, back to NI mid-1990’s and England for first round Covid-lockdown ’19, Joy is currently back living in Glasgow. Joy’s first poem was accepted as part of the C. S. Lewis themed Poetry Jukebox curation A Deeper Country in Belfast in 2019. This poem, Ricochet was published in The Poets’ Republic Issue 8 Autumn 2020. A love of reading poetry is now accompanied by sporadic writing of poetic lines which spill out as an apparent by-product of processing dark and sorrowful days.
-Holly York
lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her two large, frightening lapdogs. A PhD in French language and literature, she has retired from teaching French to university students, as well as from fierce competition in martial arts and distance running. She has produced the chapbooks Backwards Through the Rekroy Wen, Scapes, and Postcard Poetry 2020. When she isn’t hard at work writing poems in English, she might be found reading them in French to her long-suffering grandchildren, who don’t yet speak French.
-Alan Gary Smith
A Lincolnshire Ludensian living in Grimsby who built up his poetic stance after visiting Doncaster and Mexborough during his real ale and comedic music searches. Surprised to find a recent DNA check leaned heavily towards being a strong mix of Scottish, East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. A sixty year old baldy who loves Julie, astronomy and chocolate; after giving up on football and telly.
-Hilary Otto
is an English poet based in Barcelona. Her work has featured in Popshot, Black Bough Poetry, AIOTB, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and The Blue Nib, among other publications. She received her first Pushcart Prize Nomination and performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. She tweets at @hilaryotto
-Jim young
is an old poet living in Mumbles on The Gower. He does most of his writing from his beach hut at Rotherslade – still waiting for the blue plaque
Anjum Wasim Dar was born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, She is a migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi she has a Masters degree in English Literature and History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English from Cambridge UK. , a Diploma in TEFL from AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. She has been writing poems,
articles and stories since 1980.A published poet Anjum was awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal in 2000 by ISP International Society of Poets and poetry.com USA .
She has worked as Creative Writer at Channel 7 Adv. Company Islamabad, and as a Teacher Educator for Fauji Foundation Education Network Inservice Teachers
They came to see the girl , they had to choose, and then she was chosen all the time the boy and the boys mother,sat looking at her,she was frozen
wonder what they had in mind, what they expected, what they saw in reality, her fair color, smoothness of skin, length of hair and body, style of femininity
the tea trolley had felt heavy as she pushed it in the living room, steps heavy on the carpeted floor, eyelids dropping with sleep, she glimpsed a fat belly
wondered whose was it in the family chosen for her, for future life and living ‘tea has a good taste, did you make it ? a croaky voice sounded tight n chilling
she dared not raise her eyes, she was not supposed to typical Eastern attitude of shyness, maturity, submissiveness, obedience, acceptance,service n servitude
No fear, courting death Hovering shadows and shades Silver threads stretched about Hovering here with honeycombed ground Oblong cells, flowers of sleep New life quick in the damp earth A kind of tallowy swirling De mortuis nil nisi prius The mourners split, stepping on the brink
-Doug Chinnery
Ballsbridge threads. Stretched shadows yawn Descendant might love Starving. Kneeling might produce The Botanic Gardens. A bargain! Fat Treacle cells cracking, Dead laugh hard, Wind barrow split. Gravediggers nose round.
-Elizabeth Moura
Abridgements (a black out poem with help from James Joyce)
All want to be on good terms with Habeas corpus I took to cover when she disturbed me And temper getting cross He had the gumption to Dangle that before her. It might thrill her at first Shadows of the tombs A big giant in the dark Gas of graves
The clock was on A young widow Men Love In the midst of death Vitals desire The window.
A fair share go under in Time Come up some day above ground in a landslip To be flowers With New life With thanks.
The soil Bones Nails Green and pink Go on living To feed Themselves
A devil Must be Swirling with them. Your head Gives him a sense of power He looks at The cockles of his heart
This morning The dead Would like to hear The women Laugh Better The human heart Daren’t joke At His funeral.
They say you live longer For tomorrow The papers Ceased to Care -st
An Old Actor’s Lament
Bloom, grey spouting beard! Thrill her!
Here, the same women still kiss young Romeo, pleasure tantalising, gnawing, desire growing.
Over there, every man – well preserved – would of course live forever.
Those pretty little ladies – hot, strong, and sweet – laugh; joke about your life.
How many have you asked? Two, ten, eleven? The papers ceased to care.
-Tim Fellows
-Mark Grainger
-Mark Grainger’s second erasure from the same page
The caretaker’s fear after the funeral. Churchyards yawn and say Romeo – tantalising, gnawing desire all honeycombed.
Giant poppies killed the Christian boy, cheerful Peter, strong and sweet. Hard to read your own obituary.
-Georgia Hilton
Shave the dead
the tombs yawn and sleep pitchdark Romeo tantalising the starving
a fair field, honeycombed and neat
flowers of sleep gardens blood-fruit
rot black feed a devil
cheerful, cracking cockles the men hear juicy, hot, sweet
put the papers in the graves
-Sarah Connor
Bios And Links
-Tracy Dawson
is an active member of Read to Write (Balby and Mexborough) and Lippy Women. Her poems have been published in anthologies by Maytree Press and Ripon Poetry Festival.
this door is too small, but am I too tall or big or big minded, what is that? a key? will it open the door for me?
there is only One who has a key to every lock in every door,and a lock for every key..
like an inner eye there is an inner door, rising high when pure it is elegant when patient,shadow less Shadowless in the sun? stranger still in constant revolution…
what great doors are these? The Door of the Night Faery and Elf Doors Forbidden Doors and more Ali Baba’s Door,
no more no more how much, how many keys more I need, of kindness charity forgiveness_ will I be able to clean the dark mess no ‘eat me’ ‘drink me’ will work but only no Hercules Nor Ulysses nor Poseidon No Icarus will carry high …
Page from Ulysses by James Joyce
The Wombwell Rainbow 