Blue

Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

For the thirteenth day of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, a poem inspired by the painting Earth by Anjum Wasim Dar. You can read all of today’s poems here.

Blue

Blue the planet and green,
spinning,
alone in space,
ours.

Such beauty, we say
in all the hues of perception,

from God-woven thoughts of a benign despot,
to the apotheosis of natural creation,
the happy union of gas, rock, fire and water.

Such beauty, we repeat and repeat,
content to invoke
beauty, awe, God, Gaia, eternity etc. etc.
so loud we don’t have to hear the warnings,

so selective in what we see,
the spinning doesn’t remind us
of water going down the plug.

View original post

Day 13. 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 13th.

Day Thirteen

AWD13 Earth

-Anjum Wasim Dar – Earth

IGK13 girl beneath statue of Christ

-Gaynor Kane – Beneath Statue of Christ

JPL13

-John Phandal Law

Whole New World – Written With Jen Feroze’s Five Year Old Daughter

After Anjum Wasim Dar

There are no people there
not yet, anyway. No doctors,
no parents. No-one.

That’s why it’s magical still,
this whole new world.
It’s really far away from here
but not so different, really.
There are deserts and trees.
There are flowers and waves.
I suppose there will be cities one day.
But at the moment
the water is made of music.
Listen.

-Jen Feroze and her five year old daughter

I.N.R.I.
(after Girl beneath statue of Christ, GK13)
We sang cross-legged on cold floors
– the wise man built his house
Builds his dead writhing idols
– upon the rock
out of stone out of fear on a hill
– and the rain came tumbling down

Sitting among clocks and petals
in nature rests innocence
all sun rays and buttercups
a ladybird lands on her hand
tickles her arm as she watches on
in awe and scientific discovery.

– Jamie Woods

Screenshot_2022-04-12-21-46-54-53_e307a3f9df9f380ebaf106e1dc980bb6

-Vicky Allen

Lighthouse
The Earth is swirling,
melting, we gasp
in its heavy air,
claw at its unyielding land.
The seas we try to escape on
are choking.
As our eyes close in prayer,
we glimpse the lighthouse
as it flickers one last time.

-Tim Fellows

JPL13 (An Irregular Sonnet)

Move in closer, so I can tell the tale
quiet as it deserves to be related.
When all are positioned comfortably
I shall begin and there will be no
stopping me; I’ll freewheel downhill
relentlessly until the story ends so
there is no point in raising your hand
to question me – you’ll be ignored.
Entranced by the blue calmness of these
waters, he speculated why someone
would pick this location for a lighthouse.
Taken by the view, he failed to notice
the wild elements discussing his fate and
the wise birds fleeing the scene…

-Peter A.

Broken Stitches (AWD13 + JPL13)

Bitterns and gulls
prick the saffron sky,
run a threaded needle

in and out of gunmetal
blue moiré. Rain softens
hillsides, nudges structures

into sea. Nature will win
if winning means erasure.
At ground level, our

oil slick of a planet
mutes light. But seen
from space—floating in azure

glow, a cowry shell
now empty, speckles
of mountains, trees

and open pit mines.
When the stars listen.
they hear waves whimper.

—Lynne Jensen Lampe

Blue

(inspired by Earth by Anjum Wasim Dar

Blue the planet and green,
spinning,
alone in space,
ours.

Such beauty, we say
in all the hues of perception,

from God-woven thoughts of a benign despot,
to the apotheosis of natural creation,
the happy union of gas, rock, fire and water.

Such beauty, we repeat and repeat,
content to invoke
beauty, awe, God, Gaia, eternity etc. etc.
so loud we don’t have to hear the warnings,

so selective in what we see,
the spinning doesn’t remind us
of water going down the plug.

-Jane Dougherty

I Denied You
To GK13 Girl Beneath Statue of Christ

When I died at age 7
You spared me. But I awoke
To the stone-tablet draft of the Bible.

Your dad was a bad ass. Jealous
And punishing. Kids told me
That I was going to hell

For having long hair.
For smiling. For dancing.
I denied you, Christ.

My dad was the preacher,
So in Sunday school, I was not supposed to
Call them liars and deny you.

For years, I stuffed you in a pillow slip
Cried. Felt shame
For turning my back on you.

Christmas, a day that fatigued trees.
Easter, an egg toss. How I loved the games
And gifts. I forgot you.

They cast your image in a manger
And on a donkey, and then a cross.
“Suffer the children,” you taught.

I weave you laurels
From a wealthy meadow
But cannot reach your granite crown.

-Barbara Leonhard

GK13 Girl beneath statue of Christ

I remember a secret place, tree-nook
where we tucked blue velvet scraps
a tender shrine for a carved statue
slightly chipped, of the BVM.

Two of us kneeled, palms pressed
new grass tickling our sockless legs
as we burbled hail marys, our fathers
and glorybes, comparing rosaries.

Mine, the best, had a holywater vial
at its heart. I thought God would be
impressed. We both asked to be nuns
but He had way more sense.

-Lesley Curwen

13. [Earth AWD13]

It’s as if we’re walking on the eye of God,
Isn’t it? This place? Such clarity of air,
The sea so encompassing, the earth
In it’s deep mud depth, and the greenery,
Oh! Cycling into goldery. Oh, and then
The light! Let there be light! And there was!
As if He’s looking at us, can I say He? Do you
mind?
As if we’re walking [Ow!] on the eye [Ouch!],
Taking steps across His [Owww!] iris, slipping
On His tears, how He must love what He sees!

-Math Jones

13 AWD and GK
The convoys and a head of state travel
divergent paths. In a vortex where bodies are strewn,
who can be trusted? The child amongst flowers
at the foot of Christ is the child wrapped in scarves on the road.
Faces in the windows of the bus
whose windows have been shot out
turn away, from the camera, cold.

-Lesley James

GK13

A child’s mind
Where dreams and reality
One and the same

-Carrie Ann Golden

(Un)tethered (Inspired by AWD13, “Earth,” and JPL13)

He is weightless, untethered
to the Earth he sees rising in blue
before him
white cloud swirl-figures dance across

home

where moonglade silvered the grey-green sea,
but brighter were the beacon lights
that once glowed high and low
as birds on beach and in the sky
warned off intruders
with star-echoed songs–

in space, he thinks he hears them now,
star-birds, like him, so far from home.

-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

-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)

Day 12, Ekphrastic Challenge, My poem, Our Galaxy, Our Earth

merrildsmith's avatarYesterday and today: Merril's historical musings

Inspired by all three images for Day 12

Our Galaxy, Our Earth

“A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars – billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.”
–Carl Sagan, Cosmos

There are castles and towers to hold and defend,
lighthouse beacons that rise from the sand

whose tiny grains were pounded from rock
then traveled on currents, volcanic shocks

that shifted and shook, forming craggy places
for conquerors and tourists, shell-filled spaces

cherished for history, beauty, charm,
there we walk, arm and arm

with ghosts of ancient people and things
that waft, hover, and take wing

as the sun beats down—our very own star—

Here, we are

the astronomer says, pointing to a tiny dot,
not even a speck, that spot

is our galaxy, and there our sun, please note it can’t be seen–
tinier still, our Earth’s blue and green,

View original post 72 more words

Celebrate #NationalPetDay. Please join Peter Donnelly and myself. I will feature your published/unpublished poetry/short prose/artworks about this issue. Please include a short third person bio.

bella

-Queen of our Home. Her forever home.

Dandy

Unlike the cats,
he was our only dog.
Like them he was
no-one else’s pet
before ours. A gun dog,

unused to commands
like sit, stay, no.
His papers were lost
like his first owner,
or most of his tail,

mysteriously missing.
Lazy, but say his name
or mention a walk
and he was on his feet.
His ears were as sharp

as his claws, he heard
my footsteps before I was home.
The envy of every farmer
in the village, when he barked
you knew something was wrong,

or when he wouldn’t eat the biscuit
he usually wagged his tail at.
Like all our pets he lived a long life;
like the cat and the rabbit
I was away from home when he died.

-Peter Donnelly

Missy

We knew she hadn’t long to live
when she couldn’t move from the corner
of the kitchen floor the night before
she died, but it was still a shock
when a neighbour knocked on the door
next day to ask if we had a cat,
a white one? Somehow she’d got outside
to the pavement, not the road,
thank goodness. Rescued
by the RSPCA, a tear in her ear,
we never guessed she’d last sixteen years.
Her painful paws couldn’t carry her
any further, her claws spiralled
like fossils, they’d kept growing
as she grew too old to have them cut.

-Peter Donnelly (previously appeared in the Dreich magazine.)

Seven Species

First there was Missy the mongrel
from the RSPCA,
at least 144 in cat years
when she passed away.

Then stray Kitty,
dark as a witch’s cat
with a kink in her tail
who brought in a rat.

Tiger the Tabbie
was chalk to black Lilly’s cheese,
as different as Biscuit, Grandma’s ginger tom
from Heathcliff, her Siamese.

Once white Willow goes
there’ll be no more cats.
I’d have one myself
if I didn’t live in a flat.

-Peter Donnelly (previously appeared in the Dreich magazine.)

 

A Cat Day

Long haired big and black
Pilchard lounges on a rug
he thinks we bought for him.

Short haired ginger and small
Jaffa relaxes on shabby chic garden chair
she knows we bought for her.

-Paul Brookes

Cat Called Nothing

JPS calls me Nothing.

Catness carries being at its heart.
I am condemned to be free.
If I tremble at the slightest noise,
If each creak announces me a look

This is because I am already in the state
Of being-looked-at.

Catness haunts being. Hell is other people.
Catness lies coiled at the heart of being
like a worm.

Consciousness is a being,
the nature of which is to be conscious
of the Catness of its being.

-Paul Brookes

A Cat’s Concern

Bella is the abandoned cat rescued
by our dear late friend Big John and his spouse
who cleaning his jacket asked why cat food
treats pocketed when it’s not a cat house?

John tells her in preparing their new home
a little cat comes from the undergrowth.
Neighbours say she was left behind alone
when old owner sold house and loath

to see her starve have been feeding her scraps
but sorry they can’t take her in themselves.
He knows some cat lovers who will perhaps
take her in and care for her as themselves.

John and spouse renewed vows dressed as Beauty
and Beast so Bella does her nurse duty.

-Paul Brookes (from my Self-Isolation Sonnets)

Bios And Links

-Peter J Donnelly

lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary. He has a degree in English Literature and a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Wales Lampeter. He has been published in various magazines including Dreich where these poems previously appeared. He won second prize in the Ripon Poetry Festival competition. 

 

Concealed #Poetry #NaPoWriMo #NationalPoetryMonth

Carrie Ann Golden's avatarA writer & her adolescent muse

Throughout the month of April, I am taking part of the annual Ekphrastic Challenge over on The Wombwell Rainbow – hosted by Paul Brooks.

This Challenge is a collaboration between three artists and nearly a dozen writers including myself.

**********

April 11th

Artist John Phandal Law

Concealed

Concealed by the trees

This cottage once knew laughter

The silence is death

******

If you would like to read poetry by the other writers – click here.

View original post

Stars

Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

My poem for Day 12 of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge. I used all three images. You can see them here and read the responses.

Stars

Striving since the beginning,
since fire, watching the flames leap into the night,
sparks among the stars,

since we built from holes in the ground,
created majesty, a sense of importance,
higher and higher,

and even the stories of hubris, chaos,
Babel, the casting down into the ocean,
death,

have never stopped our urge
to point a finger at the sky
and say, There go I.

Fly, soar, claim, conquer,
and in the end
(if this truly is the end),

all we hold in our fist,
is a handful of feathers
from the Firebird’s tail.

View original post

Day 12. My annual National Poetry Month 2022 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, Anjum Wasim Dar, and writers, Ailsa Cawley, 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 12th.

Day Twelve

GK12 Enniskillen Castle - County Fermanagh

-Gaynor Kane – Enniskillen Castle – County Fermanagh

AWD12 Galaxy

-Anjum Wasim Dar – Galaxy

JPL12

-John Phandal Law

galaxies

close eyes
to sun-bright
twitching skin
heat, light

heat, light
suffuse,
bewitch, enlarge
my being

my being
receives this
as food, drink
after winter’s knives

winter’s knives
blunted by
eyes closed
revealing galaxies

galaxies
of crimson pulses
amber spirals
white hot blaze

eyes closed
I see galaxies
and sink
into bewitching light

-Vicky Allen

when we die by barbara leonhard

Stars
(inspired by all three images)

Striving since the beginning,
since fire, watching the flames leap into the night,
sparks among the stars,

since we built from holes in the ground,
created majesty, a sense of importance,
higher and higher,

and even the stories of hubris, chaos,
Babel, the casting down into the ocean,
death,

have never stopped our urge
to point a finger at the sky
and say, There go I.

Fly, soar, claim, conquer,
and in the end
(if this truly is the end),

all we hold in our fist,
is a handful of feathers
from the Firebird’s tail.

-Jane Dougherty

Screenshot_2022-04-11-20-40-44-31_e307a3f9df9f380ebaf106e1dc980bb6

-Tim Fellows

12 AWD
More humanitarian corridors
Fewer humanitarians.
Display. Splay
Locate. Dislocate
Evolve. Revolve.
The scent of eucalyptus and mint.
Urinous sage as it burns.
What kind of exploding galaxy creates this?
What rough beast etcetera etcetera?

-Lesley James

12 [Galaxy AWD12]

I had to take a piece out
To show you the hole,
The whole, sorry,
Strange,
That there need’s to be a piece missing.

-Math Jones

Galaxy

You told me that I was above myself
With friends who had dreams
Of things you didn’t understand
And nor should I

Things were shrunken into the uniform
Sludge brown of your world
Every time a green shoot showed
You’d STAMP on it until crushed
Broken you’d say

So intent were you on the world around you
That you didn’t manage
To break my imagination and
I hid it down so deep until I left
When I unleashed and unlocked
The galaxy I’d kept hidden from you.

-Ailsa Cawley 2022 inspired by Anjum Wasim Dar – Galaxy

JPL12

Sand has invaded the far
space of the gun
emplacement. Nothing inside
but its rough
touch and a necklace
of over wintering flies.
Even when it was manned
it must have felt
like holiday time for tommies
deep skies
blue sea and a lighthouse
with its lamp
extinguished.

-Lesley Curwen

A Warning

(after Untitled, JPL12)
heavenly lighthouse
hooped in contrast
omniscient and divine
like a god
so easily mistaken
for sanctuary and protection
standing spinning warnings
while waves and high winds
crash and destroy at will

– Jamie Woods

GK12

If walls could speak
History wouldn’t need
To repeat itself

-Carrie Ann Golden

High Noon and Not a Cloud in the Sky (AWD12)

Rubber bands and RIT dye
transform an old yellow pillowcase
into red sky, blazing circles, and white
scar of sun. She could stuff it
with foam and throw it on her bed
or stuff it with snacks and run
away, like in books. She packs
flashlight, pen, new notebook.
Water bottle. Bandaids. The Wolves
of Willoughby Chase. A baloney sandwich.
Her mama’s peanut butter cookies
and the fork for criss-crosses. Her
daddy’s hanky, the one with the little
letter on it. A picture of her parents,
so she won’t forget. Hoists it all
over her shoulder and heads out
to orbit a different star.

—Lynne Jensen Lampe

Screenshot_2022-04-11-20-31-46-04_a27b88515698e5a58d06d430da63049d

-Peter A

Vivid colours

Life 1

Live life small,
shrink into grey spaces
where long lists of fears
bite your ankle.

Wait for death,
for decorum to become unfashionable,
for your sense of entitlement
to dwell in life’s misery
drive you to despair.

Life 2

Life is a galaxy
a whirl of diastole and systole
dark holes and vivid colours –
rainbows, gold pot endings.

Create delight in the moment,
whatever your heart sings to you.
Dance in the magnificence
of your curiosity.

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

-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 March/April 2022: A Review

Billy Mills's avatarElliptical Movements

Stone Mountain Fairy Shrimp, James Goodman, Guillemot Press, 2022, ISBN 978-1-913749-22-4, £12.00

YARN, Peter Dent, Leafe Press, 2021, ISBN: 978-1999945114, £9.00

Life Here is Full of Tomorrows, Mélisande Fitzsimons, Leafe Press, 2021, ISBN: 9781999945190, £8.00

The question of what ecopoetry, or an environmentally engaged poetry, might look like is, I think, extremely unresolved. Opinions range from the view that ecopoetics are purely a way of reading poems, and not a viable approach to making them to the conflation of nature poetry with ecological work. I have long argued against this last position: it seems evident that poetry that uses capital N Nature as a proxy for human emotions, that indulges in the pathetic fallacy, for example, is egocentric rather than ecocentric. Wordsworth, to take a salutary instance may be a Nature poet but his work is not in any meaningful sense engaged with the natural world as…

View original post 1,423 more words