Moors Are a stage for the performance of heaven. The audience is incidental. A chess-world of top-heavy Kings and Queens Circling in stilted majesty tremble the bog-cotton Under the sweep of their robes. Ted Hughes Pretty much at the top of my post-lockdown visit list was a trip to visit Jenny Twigg and her Daughter […]
On the Grit — The smell of water
If there were a river it would run straight through your bones Calcifying you to ash This branding, is the moon’s doing She split you at birth, you sing two songs Stir yourself then … before this dissolve reinforces despair In time we shall join you, there in your undoing, where you began and ended,…
Her eyes became a wound — The Feathered Sleep
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…
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Dr Sara Louise Wheeler
has Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1, a genetic condition which affects her physical appearance as well as her hearing. She writes the column ‘O’r gororau’ (from the borders) for Barddas Welsh poetry magazine and her poetry, belles lettres and artwork has been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dark Poets Club, Fahmidan Journal, Cloverleaf Zine, and 3am Magazine. Sara is currently writing an autobiographical bildungsroman opera called The Silver Princess, funded by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Originally from Wrecsam in North East Wales, she now lives on the Wirral peninsula with her husband Peter and their pet tortoise Kahless.
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Excellent video from Taking Flight Theatre Company
Arachne Press in their project “Stairs and Whispers”
created a whole series of poetry written in British Sign Language all available on Youtube. they have kindly allowed me to quote some examples:
Presented as part of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press, 2017, edited by Sandra Alland, Khairani Barokka & Daniel Sluman)
Find more BSL poetry here: BSL poetry – YouTube
Another useful link is to the British Sign Language Poetry Playlist by Kate Lovell: https://disabilityarts.online/playlist/british-sign-language-poetry/
other useful links:
https://deaffirefly.com/bsl-poetry/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/disability-40670284
https://www.signbsl.com/sign/poem
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/education/migrated/documents/iconicity.pdf
Ailbhe’s Tale by Lynn Buckle
Andrew Duncan was born in Leeds, in 1956. He studied as a mediaevalist and started his writing career in punk ‘fanzines’. He has been publishing poetry since the late 1970s, serving as the editor of the magazine Angel Exhaust. Duncan worked as a labourer (in England and Germany) after leaving school, and subsequently as a project planner with a telecoms manufacturer (1978–87), and as a programmer for the Stock Exchange.
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You can read listen to Andrew Duncan reading his poems here
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A Barbarian Tripos: – On Andrew Duncan
David Hackbridge Johnson
The alien cultures
punk fanzine of new vistas
mesh of a Chinese martial-arts movie
our modern mercantile mess.
This is not meant as a poem but is ‘found’ from the blurbs on the back covers of four Andrew Duncan poetry volumes. Not at all randomly culled. From these perceptive fragments it might be possible to make…
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-Soo Finch
-Jonathan Totman
A Dawn Chorus (Vacana 11)
O, Lady of the Breath.
how to arc in your air?
A dozen or more tiny caves
sing you into the world
from the trillbudded barkskin
volume and delivery
a root that connects with
its origin tree,
broadcasts to my ears,
territory songs,
and chat up lines, a Saturday
night on the town played out
on a morning before the wormshop,
home repair, teach bairns how to fly,
-Paul Brookes
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 desireFree 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.
The Wombwell Rainbow 