Month: April 2022
Day 24, Ekphrastic Challenge, My Poem, Life Drawings
Inspired by AWD24, Anjum Wasim Dar’s, “Pencil City”
Life Drawings
If we could outline our lives,
pencil-draw and illustrate,
pastel the years, crayon over tears,
erase mistakes, re-trace–
archive the drawings with a note,
highlight this place, add a quote
from that time–
remember
the bright beauty, the blues, greens, and pink
tattooed in indelible ink, shaded, but well-defined
rolled, tied with a ribbon,
filed in my mind.
I am once again participating in Paul Brookes’ April Ekphrastic Challenge. Each day, I will post my poem(s) here. You can see the art and read the other responses by going to Paul’s site here.
The artists are Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Thank you for your wonderful and inspiring art!
Day 24. My annual National Poetry Month 2022 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, Anjum Wasim Dar, and writers, Angi Plant, Tim Fellows, Math Jones, Merril D. Smith, Jamie Woods, Lesley James, Lesley Curwen, Carrie Ann Golden, Peter A., Barbara Leonhard, Jane Dougherty, Eloise Birnam-Wood, Jen Feroze, Vicky Allen, Simon Williams, Jona Roy, Beth Brooke, Caroline Johnstone, Lynne Jensen Lampe and myself. April 24th.
Day Twenty-Four
-John Phandal Law
-Gaynor Kane – Oversized Icecube
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Pencil City
Throwing Shade (GK24)
She picks her favorite
bar, the one where olives
and pickled asparagus adorn
the bloody marys and orange
slices swim in the sangria.
8 am and the bartender pushes
a paper umbrella into her drink.
Seems like everyone but us
is drinking coffee—plenty of mugs,
not one crowned with whipped
cream or sporting a pink parasol.
I order rye on the rocks. More
like rye under the rocks, a chunk
of ice wedged tight, trapping
the liquid, extending beyond
the rim of the glass. Weeping,
and not a coaster in sight.
She tosses her paper
umbrella on the bar. Jesus.
Even whiskey has to deal
with a square peg in a round
hole. Not belonging.
As in this ice cube doesn’t
belong in my drink. As in I don’t
belong in this bar. As in she
doesn’t belong to me.
—Lynne Jensen Lampe
24. [Pencil City AWD24]
Some are drawn here.
Some are lead.
But no-one’s ever penned in.
The hard like to make a point,
say, “sharpen up!”
but the soft like to blur a bit, to shade,
“everyone has six-sides,” they say.
Cops and rubbers on the TV.
Cross-hatching in the kitchen,
the smell of graphite in the air.
And the ancient stubs, shorter now,
sat around the bottom of a jar,
discuss the virtues of a long line, or
the legitimacy of charcoal.
-Math Jones
AWD24
Stick figures
Scarred by leaden
Abrasions
Then erased from existence
-Carrie Ann Golden
-Jane Dougherty
Ships
You lose perception of distance
the further away you get.
Jet trails in the sky,
ships on the horizon,
memories.
-Tim Fellows
Life Drawings (Inspired by AWD24, “Pencil City”)
If we could outline our lives,
pencil-draw and illustrate,
pastel the years, crayon over tears,
erase mistakes, re-trace–
archive the drawings with a note,
highlight this place, add a quote
from that time–
remember
the bright beauty, the blues, greens, and pink
tattooed in indelible ink, shaded, but well-defined
rolled, tied with a ribbon,
filed in my mind.
-Merril D. Smith
AWD24 – Pencil City
There isn’t always a point
There isn’t always a light
But where you find a light
you may find many lights
Then you will see the point
over and over for evermore
Yet if you try to write it down
the pencil will turn to candle
And then you will realise that
the only way to learn is to be
-Peter A.
Pencil Etymology
(after Pencil City AWD24)
A city of fine paint brushes,
trees as brush,
mountains defined
Siri translate Latin tail.
All designed by Sir Richard Rogers
C.B.E. O.B.E. N.O.B.
and other men with
phallic cars and bulging wallets.
A city of pencils
designed to project
their manliness,
their manhood.
The pen is a sword.
The pen is a sword.
The pen is a sword.
Rub it all out,
and tippex the patriarchy.
-Jamie Woods
Anniversary (24 AWD, GK, JPL)
We drink/ a cocktail /at lunchtime /to celebrate /our life / together/We buy cheese/ and home-made chocolates/ from a farmer’s market/We look out/ to a peaceful sea/ and imagine ourselves /afloat / While explosions / neonise /distant mountains/ and mortars/ detonate/
the lead news story is the shortage of cooking oil
-Lesley James
Supersize Me
To GK 24 Oversized Ice Cube
When you order a bourbon on ice,
he asks, “Would you like a glacier with that?”
No surprise about size. The 16-inch dinner plate
heaves a 20-ounce T-bone
and a basin of fries on the side.
You’ve already foraged
at the All-You-Can-Eat Salad Bar –
so long it is marked with trail signs.
“This way to the tater salad”. You can lodge
At Ranch Dressing. Rest at Mayo Clinic.
You tell the kids, “Eat it all,
or you don’t eat!” They slosh it down
with refills of Mountain Dew
with extra glacier. For dessert, gluts of apple pie
under mounds of ice cream.
Meanwhile that glacial ice is melting
onto the table, the floor, and out the door,
sweeping you up with gas guzzlers, trash trucks,
and hog haulers. You barely have time
to ask,
“Can I get that to go?”
-Barbara Leonhard
Bios And Links
-John Phandal Law
is 68. Lives in Mexborough. Retired teacher. Artist; musician; poet. Recently included in ‘Viral Verses‘ poetry volume. Married. 2 kids; 3 grandkids
-Gaynor Kane
Gaynor Kane lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she is a part-time creative, involved in the local arts scene. She writes poetry and is an amateur artist and photographer. In all her creative activities she is looking to capture moments that might otherwise be missed. Discover more at gaynorkane.com
Twitter @gaynorkane
Facebook @gaynorkanepoet
Instagram @gaynorkanepoet
-Anjum Wasim Dar
started drawing at St Anne’s Presentation Convent High School, Rawalpindi.
Drawing was taught as a Core subject from Kindergarten.
Anjum learnt the skill of Still Life, Sketching, Landscape Drawing, Coloring and Shading She recalled the scented wax crayons and black paper sketch books vividly.
Subject of Fine Arts at Intermediate level at Govt.College for Women Rawalpindi, was stopped by the Indo Pak War of 1965. Anjum continued her passion for art privately.
Her job as a Teacher Instructor allowed her to pursue Art work designing and preparing Thematic Bulletin Boards and Low cost teaching Aids with the Fauji Foundation Teacher’s Training Institute Rawalpindi. www.faujifoundation.org.
This won her the National Education Award 1998.
Completing a Course in Graphic Designing at NICON Academy Rawalpindi , Anjum began working as a Digital Artist, On Line, registered her Own Firm CER Creative Education Resources 2004 and is a Member of DRN Drawing Research Network UK and www.bigdraw.org.uk
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/tracey/drn/
https://sites.google.com/site/cerprofessionaldevelopment/
With her artistic skills she plans and conducts “Environment Awareness Workshops for Children” and is a member of www.unep.org and www.earthday.org
CER Participated in World Environment Day and Earth Day Programs 2011-2013
“Face of Climate Change”
Anjum loves Nature, landscapes and abstract imagery. Works with pencils, crayons and the Software ArtRage 2.0 and MyPaint.
Anjum Wasim Dar’s Art Portfolio can be accessed here:
https://www.artwanted.com/anjuartwriter/gallery/
-Merril D. Smith
lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press. Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Website/blog: merrildsmith.com
work appears in various online and print publications. She earned both third place and honorary mention for two poems in Well Versed 2021. She is currently writing her first poetry collection about her relationship with her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. From that memoir collection, her poem “Marie Kindo Cleans My Purse at Starbucks” was voted Spillwords Publication of the Month of January and February 2022. Barbara was also voted Spillwords Author of the Month of October 2021 and recognized as a Spillwords Socialite of the Year in 2021. You can follow her on WordPress at https://www.extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog.
-Lesley James(she/her)
is a teacher and writer. She was shortlisted for Love Reading UK’s 2022 Very Short Story Award. Featured flash can be found in The Broken Spine, FullHouseLitMag and RoiFaineant. Kathryn O’Driscoll selected her poem Empty for Full House’s 2021 mental health live reading and forthcoming podcast. Brian Moses, The Dirigible Balloon and Parakeet Magazine have published some of her writing for children.
-Lynne Jensen Lampe
has poems in or forthcoming from Figure 1, Olney Magazine, Yemassee, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Also to come is her chapbook Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) about mothers, daughters, and mental illness. She was a 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize finalist. Born in Newfoundland and raised in the Deep South, she lives in mid-Missouri where she edits academic books and journals. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com. Twitter: @LJensenLampe.
-Math Jones
is London-born, but is now based in Oxford. He has two books published: Sabrina Bridge, a poetry collection, from Black Pear Press (2017), and The Knotsman, a collection of verse, rhyme, prose and poetic monologue, which tell of the life and times of a C17th cunning-man. Much of his verse comes out of mythology and folklore: encounters with the uncanny and unseen. Also, as words written for Pagan ritual or as praise poems for a multitude of goddesses and gods. He is a trained actor and performs his poems widely.
-Caroline Johnstone
is an author and poet from Northern Ireland now living in Scotland. She has been published widely including Poetry Scotland, The Blue Nib and Marble Poetry. She loves spending time with her grandchildren, curling up with a good book and champagne or cocktails in no particular order.
-Lesley Curwen
is a poet and sailor living in Plymouth. She often writes about loss, rescues and the sea.
Her work has been published in anthologies from Arachne Press, Nine Pens, Quay Words, Slate, snakeskin, and soon by BrokenSpine and Broken Sleep.
Her poetic relationship with sound has been helped by her work as a BBC broadcaster, editing words on screen.
-Carrie Ann Golden
is from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in the Red River Valley of North Dakota (USA). She writes dark fiction and poetry. A Deafblind, her work has been published in places such as GFT Press, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Asylum Ink, Piker Press, Edify Fiction and others. You can find her on her writing blog as well as Medium and Twitter.
-Jen Feroze
lives by the sea in Essex with her husband and two small children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of publications including Ink Sweat & Tears, Chestnut Review, Atrium and The Madrigal. Her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published in 2020 and she’s currently working on a chapbook of poems about early motherhood.
-Paul Brookes
is a shop asst in a supermarket. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews and challenges. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and, videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions. Most recent is a poetry collaboration with artworker Jane Cornwell: “Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing”, (JCStudio Press, 2021)
NaPoWriMo 2022 day 23
Review of ‘A Triptych of Birds & A Few Loose Feathers’ by Pratibha Castle
Before I read A Triptych of Birds and a Few Loose Feathers (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2022) I had heard Pratibha Castle perform her poems on several occasions. I knew, therefore, she was a talented writer. However, it was only on reading her debut collection that I came to appreciate fully the magnitude of that talent, for her poems are full of wonderfully resonant imagery, not a word is wasted: she is a poet totally in command of her craft.
In this collection we see Castle using the external natural world as a vehicle for exploring and understanding the inner self. She is an acute observer of nature, captured in precise, eloquent language and breath-taking imagery. In Sparrow Love she describes the courtship of two birds. The behaviour of the female is impressively conveyed in the opening stanza: ‘The female flirts her tail,/ flamenco flounce/ of a doyenne cute at charm’…
View original post 1,115 more words
These dark days
This poem, for Day 23 of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, was inspired by Anjum Wasim Dar’s painting Drink.
These dark days
These dark days
I see no beacon on the rocky shore
no light at tunnels’ end
beneath the fields
forced with crops
the soil is silent.
I see the glass half-empty
where the wind whistles no turnstones
the only flood is blood
and in this tormented sky
of cold cloud cross-hatched with rain
where are the swallows?
Day 23 Ekphrastic Challenge, My poem, Casandra
Inspired by all three images for today.
Casandra
No one listens,
none believe
my auguries, the dreams
in crystal, upside-down
temples, cities, walls atilt,
a second away from tumbling
into the sea
as they toast from the precipice
at sunset, the sky blood-red
and the wine,
spilled
as I tremble, a cup plunges into the sea–
the fish swim on unconcerned–
I see their eyes, their eyes
meet mine
eyes on eyes
as I fall
in a vision.
But I am a woman, chattel,
a prize of war.
No one listens
I am once again participating in Paul Brookes’ April Ekphrastic Challenge. Each day, I will post my poem(s) here. You can see the art and read the other responses by going to Paul’s site here.
The artists are Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Thank you for your wonderful and inspiring art!
Day 23. My annual National Poetry Month 2022 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, Anjum Wasim Dar, and writers, Angi Plant, Tim Fellows, Math Jones, Merril D. Smith, Jamie Woods, Lesley James, Lesley Curwen, Carrie Ann Golden, Peter A., Barbara Leonhard, Jane Dougherty, Eloise Birnam-Wood, Jen Feroze, Vicky Allen, Simon Williams, Jona Roy, Beth Brooke, Caroline Johnstone, Lynne Jensen Lampe and myself. April 23rd.
Day Twenty-Three
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Drink
-Gaynor Kane – GK23 Mussenden Temple in photography crystal ball
-John Phandal Law
These dark days (AWD23)
These dark days
I see no beacon on the rocky shore
no light at tunnels’ end
beneath the fields
forced with crops
the soil is silent.
I see the glass half-empty
where the wind whistles no turnstones
the only flood is blood
and in this tormented sky
of cold cloud cross-hatched with rain
where are the swallows?
-Jane Dougherty
23. [Drink AWD23]
Ghost goblet somewhere out of sight floating like a thirst close my eyes to taste you don’t know might you kill me might you soothe this knap of velvet brushed against rasp of a serrated blade might you be here a ghost of all I drink upon and yet when I place you to the lips of my heart two becoming the the same thing they always were drink and spit drink
-Math Jones
A Toast
to AWD 23 Drink
She said No to an open marriage,
so he opened the bottle. Stopped talking
no matter how hard she tried to get
Hello! How was your day?
He started with coffee.
Lots of sugar and cream. Just sat
around all day. By the time she arrived home,
he’d had a few beers.
How’s everything? You OK? She’d ask.
One day, he replied. Called her outside.
Ordered her to move the air conditioner.
I can’t move that thing! She said.
Move it, dammit! Move it, you bitch!
Another time, his drunken bullying forced her
to turn onto an interstate no-exit ramp
into oncoming traffic.
He told the counselor
that the problem with the marriage
was that she talked
too much.
Yes, she did. Called her mom,
her sisters, anyone who’d listen
and just cry and cry –
until one day, she said, Leave!
Take your beers. Your cigarettes.
Your abuse. This is my house!
You can no longer harm me!
Let’s toast to that!
-Barbara Leonhard
Wine
Wine transports you to places
seen and unseen. The castles
of the Rhine, the banks of the Loire,
the hills of Spain, the broad plains
of Marlborough.
Sun. Rain. Vine. Grape.
Fermenting and aging in cellars.
Waiting for the turn of cap or cork,
the sound of pouring liquid.
The swirl of the glass.
Memories and wishes.
-Tim Fellows
23 JPL
The wreck of the Moskva becomes Kintsugi for a moment
when it is declared a UNESCO site of Cultural Heritage for Ukraine
Whenever we’d pass salvage yards, she’d
say: Who’s going to tidy this mess up? When
it’s done, and the thing-crushers, breakers
and compactors have shut down – mangled chunks
of this, shattered shards of that, splinters of lives
or treasures hoarded in hope – who will put
the fractured chunks together again, pick up
the last screw stuck in mud to make
things neat? Can you mend the disembodied
or is your best hope mosaic?
-Lesley James
GK23
The sun hides its face
From the ruins on the cliff
No one cares
Carrie Ann Golden
Inspired by AWD23 and JPL23
Yes, existence may seem too complicated
Some days
Too multi-faceted – more ways of going wrong
Than right
But you wouldn’t want a two-dimensional life, let’s
Face it
Most knots can be unravelled given time and
Patience
So sit around a table with those you trust
And talk
-Peter A.
-Lesley Curwen
What I can see, said the child (JPL 23)
I see stars, their eyes like triangles
the pillars of gondolas, herringbone
floors, nursery tiles, scraps of flags
spotty dogs, spiral shells, bridges
to heaven, honeycomb cells, flower
stamens, a rising sun, viking shields
yellow brick road, comet dust, roman
mosaics, arrows pointing both ways
-Lesley Curwen
Crystal Ball
After Mussenden Temple GK23
She shows me her a crystal ball
making upside-down images
of things right in front of it
and I feel so lost and confused I cant even…
She says ‘isn’t refraction amazing’
and I say I hate it.
She tries to explain how it works
and I just burn up
/ acid reflux / my primal reflex /
fight or flight / panic attack /
hammer / luddite / fight and flight /
no crystal ball / just broken glass /
She says ‘but I love it’
I tell her ‘it’s the ball or me’.
She shrugs indifferently and says ‘it’s ok’.
Turns out she didn’t see a future for us anyway.
-Jamie Woods
Casandra (Inspired by all three artworks)
No one listens,
none believe
my auguries, the dreams
in crystal, upside-down
temples, cities, walls atilt,
a second away from tumbling
into the sea
as they toast from the precipice
at sunset, the sky blood-red
and the wine,
spilled
as I tremble, a cup plunges into the sea–
the fish swim on unconcerned–
I see their eyes, their eyes
meet mine
eyes on eyes
as I fall
in a vision.
But I am a woman, chattel,
a prize of war.
No one listens
-Merril D Smith
Bios And Links
-John Phandal Law
is 68. Lives in Mexborough. Retired teacher. Artist; musician; poet. Recently included in ‘Viral Verses‘ poetry volume. Married. 2 kids; 3 grandkids
-Gaynor Kane
Gaynor Kane lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she is a part-time creative, involved in the local arts scene. She writes poetry and is an amateur artist and photographer. In all her creative activities she is looking to capture moments that might otherwise be missed. Discover more at gaynorkane.com
Twitter @gaynorkane
Facebook @gaynorkanepoet
Instagram @gaynorkanepoet
-Anjum Wasim Dar
started drawing at St Anne’s Presentation Convent High School, Rawalpindi.
Drawing was taught as a Core subject from Kindergarten.
Anjum learnt the skill of Still Life, Sketching, Landscape Drawing, Coloring and Shading She recalled the scented wax crayons and black paper sketch books vividly.
Subject of Fine Arts at Intermediate level at Govt.College for Women Rawalpindi, was stopped by the Indo Pak War of 1965. Anjum continued her passion for art privately.
Her job as a Teacher Instructor allowed her to pursue Art work designing and preparing Thematic Bulletin Boards and Low cost teaching Aids with the Fauji Foundation Teacher’s Training Institute Rawalpindi. www.faujifoundation.org.
This won her the National Education Award 1998.
Completing a Course in Graphic Designing at NICON Academy Rawalpindi , Anjum began working as a Digital Artist, On Line, registered her Own Firm CER Creative Education Resources 2004 and is a Member of DRN Drawing Research Network UK and www.bigdraw.org.uk
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/tracey/drn/
https://sites.google.com/site/cerprofessionaldevelopment/
With her artistic skills she plans and conducts “Environment Awareness Workshops for Children” and is a member of www.unep.org and www.earthday.org
CER Participated in World Environment Day and Earth Day Programs 2011-2013
“Face of Climate Change”
Anjum loves Nature, landscapes and abstract imagery. Works with pencils, crayons and the Software ArtRage 2.0 and MyPaint.
Anjum Wasim Dar’s Art Portfolio can be accessed here:
https://www.artwanted.com/anjuartwriter/gallery/
-Merril D. Smith
lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press. Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Website/blog: merrildsmith.com
work appears in various online and print publications. She earned both third place and honorary mention for two poems in Well Versed 2021. She is currently writing her first poetry collection about her relationship with her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. From that memoir collection, her poem “Marie Kindo Cleans My Purse at Starbucks” was voted Spillwords Publication of the Month of January and February 2022. Barbara was also voted Spillwords Author of the Month of October 2021 and recognized as a Spillwords Socialite of the Year in 2021. You can follow her on WordPress at https://www.extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog.
-Lesley James(she/her)
is a teacher and writer. She was shortlisted for Love Reading UK’s 2022 Very Short Story Award. Featured flash can be found in The Broken Spine, FullHouseLitMag and RoiFaineant. Kathryn O’Driscoll selected her poem Empty for Full House’s 2021 mental health live reading and forthcoming podcast. Brian Moses, The Dirigible Balloon and Parakeet Magazine have published some of her writing for children.
-Lynne Jensen Lampe
has poems in or forthcoming from Figure 1, Olney Magazine, Yemassee, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Also to come is her chapbook Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) about mothers, daughters, and mental illness. She was a 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize finalist. Born in Newfoundland and raised in the Deep South, she lives in mid-Missouri where she edits academic books and journals. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com. Twitter: @LJensenLampe.
-Math Jones
is London-born, but is now based in Oxford. He has two books published: Sabrina Bridge, a poetry collection, from Black Pear Press (2017), and The Knotsman, a collection of verse, rhyme, prose and poetic monologue, which tell of the life and times of a C17th cunning-man. Much of his verse comes out of mythology and folklore: encounters with the uncanny and unseen. Also, as words written for Pagan ritual or as praise poems for a multitude of goddesses and gods. He is a trained actor and performs his poems widely.
-Caroline Johnstone
is an author and poet from Northern Ireland now living in Scotland. She has been published widely including Poetry Scotland, The Blue Nib and Marble Poetry. She loves spending time with her grandchildren, curling up with a good book and champagne or cocktails in no particular order.
-Lesley Curwen
is a poet and sailor living in Plymouth. She often writes about loss, rescues and the sea.
Her work has been published in anthologies from Arachne Press, Nine Pens, Quay Words, Slate, snakeskin, and soon by BrokenSpine and Broken Sleep.
Her poetic relationship with sound has been helped by her work as a BBC broadcaster, editing words on screen.
-Carrie Ann Golden
is from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in the Red River Valley of North Dakota (USA). She writes dark fiction and poetry. A Deafblind, her work has been published in places such as GFT Press, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Asylum Ink, Piker Press, Edify Fiction and others. You can find her on her writing blog as well as Medium and Twitter.
-Jen Feroze
lives by the sea in Essex with her husband and two small children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of publications including Ink Sweat & Tears, Chestnut Review, Atrium and The Madrigal. Her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published in 2020 and she’s currently working on a chapbook of poems about early motherhood.
-Paul Brookes
is a shop asst in a supermarket. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews and challenges. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and, videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions. Most recent is a poetry collaboration with artworker Jane Cornwell: “Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing”, (JCStudio Press, 2021)
Recent Reading: April 2022
A Journal of Enlightened Panic, Alan Baker, Shoestring Press, 2020, ISBN: 978-1-912524-56-3, £6.00
light light light; 21 Poems, Charlie Ulyatt, Essence Press, 2022, Price dependent on location
Wasp on the Prayer Flag, Maeve O’Sullivan, Alba Publishing, 2021, ISBN 9781912773398, £10/€12/$15
‘When a man goes out’, the opening poem in Alan Baker’s pamphlet, begins with an echo of the folk tradition, specifically the ballad known as ‘As I Roved Out’:
When a man goes out on a Sunday morning among May-month trees
(maple, sycamore, rowan, oak) and sees the tarmac paths,
the metal bench, the individual grass stalks and daises
and realises they’re the same ones he saw forty years ago
Baker’s quickly moves away from the folk tale of sex and deceit towards a journey through a closely observed world was the poem turns first to a meditation on the ecological impacts of our actions…
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The Giving Way by Richard Skelton (Guillemot Press)
How do we engage with the past? What are history, time, and the past? This seems to be the question, or one of the questions (plural), that musician, writer and publisher Richard Skelton attempts to answer, or at least explore, in this beautifully designed pamphlet. The very first part of this sequence sets the reader up for this exploration:
and what is this
what is it
is it
is
Immediately we are aware of the ideas of echoes (of sound, of the past, of other work) and also the idea that things simplyare: what is will be; what is,is; and we must be accepting as we consider ‘it’.
For the rest of the sequence, Skelton lays out a number of possibilities of what it is, or might be, including the mythological, the sacrificial, the scientific, the specific and the conjectured, the unknown and unknowable, for instance…
View original post 341 more words
The Wombwell Rainbow 