JOINT WINNER INDIGO-FIRST PAMPHLET COMPETITION 2018
I'm very excited to have my first poetry pamphlet published by Indigo Dreams.
‘Touching Sharks in Monaco’ looks at memory and the distortion of memory – things remembered, things imagined. It addresses loss and trauma in family histories, the transience of nature, and ecological concerns. Further inspiration comes from a curiosity or need to make sense of lived experience and the wider world.
If you would like a signed copy from me, you can use the link below:
paypal.me/touchingsharks
Cost is £6.80 including p&p. Please add your address as a note to the PayPal screen.
You can contact me here, if this doesn't work for you.
‘Touching Sharks in Monaco’ looks at memory and the distortion of memory – things remembered, things imagined. It addresses loss and trauma in family histories, the transience of nature, and ecological concerns. Further inspiration comes from a curiosity or need to make sense of lived experience and the wider world.
If you would like a signed copy from me, you can use the link below:
paypal.me/touchingsharks
Cost is £6.80 including p&p. Please add your address as a note to the PayPal screen.
You can contact me here, if this doesn't work for you.
Here are some sample poems from the pamphlet:
Scoot
Made from long forgotten toys
and bike bits, my scooter arrived
on the doorstep, freshly painted red,
big and clumsy. My father hoped
scooting would put meat on my bones.
I got the hang of it straight away.
I'd clatter down kerbs, flatten daisies
and criss-cross empty roads. Sometimes
I'd carry foot passengers, mostly teddies
or an occasional obliging cat.
No one coveted my wonky pram wheels,
chewed rubber handles and tinny bell.
For years I scooted along,
not caring if skin peeled from elbows,
stones embedded into knees
or bubble wrap blisters appeared on palms.
I had the means to go between
the fields and the estate, the shops and the subway,
my house and friends. And to go alone.
The first time my scooter cried blood –
red blobs of rain-washed paint and rust –
I screamed. My father pushed his face to the window,
hands either side of his head
in defeat; however hard I scooted,
I still wore my bones.
Sapling
My father thought he could cure his knee
by swinging his injured leg over the kitchen table.
I'd collect my dolls to watch from the doorway.
He's ruptured his cruciate ligament, I'd say,
as if I understood the words.
From there I could touch
the taper and curve of his wooden crutches,
propped against a wall like saplings,
could imagine my black crayon
had made grains in the ash-wood,
lines headed one way then the other – a pirate's map.
If my father caught me looking I'd flip my gaze
into the garden, to the beginnings of a plum tree,
delicate in the sun.
It didn't draw me the way those crutches did.
Years later, that tree still stands. On visits home,
I'll settle on a blanketed lawn to sketch it,
adjust my pencil to suit the light, set the lines to be reborn.
I know this tree and its moods better than I knew my father.
Sometimes I'll think of his hands
gently planting the next-to-nothing of a sapling,
of his shadow where other shadows now fall.
It's as though I can see him.
A stranger picking plums.
water
when i become water
i shall be a lake full of fish and stone
upon me wooden boats will bob
children in bobble hats
will row around my perimeter
or across to my island –
almost too far away to see from land –
to swing on rope climb trees outpace horses
you'll know me
i shall be friendly and let each gaze
touch my honest surface
i won't be in a hurry
i'll dawdle
animals will come to drink from me
locals wrapped in goose-fat will swim my laps
or sit in deckchairs on grassy banks to read books
in spring and summer
belted kingfishers will build
nests they'll choose the side in the sun
once before rivers ran dry
and oceans died when the sky held rain
there were many lakes
swirling and fertile and deep
but i will be the only one
when i become water
Link to video for poem
Scoot
Made from long forgotten toys
and bike bits, my scooter arrived
on the doorstep, freshly painted red,
big and clumsy. My father hoped
scooting would put meat on my bones.
I got the hang of it straight away.
I'd clatter down kerbs, flatten daisies
and criss-cross empty roads. Sometimes
I'd carry foot passengers, mostly teddies
or an occasional obliging cat.
No one coveted my wonky pram wheels,
chewed rubber handles and tinny bell.
For years I scooted along,
not caring if skin peeled from elbows,
stones embedded into knees
or bubble wrap blisters appeared on palms.
I had the means to go between
the fields and the estate, the shops and the subway,
my house and friends. And to go alone.
The first time my scooter cried blood –
red blobs of rain-washed paint and rust –
I screamed. My father pushed his face to the window,
hands either side of his head
in defeat; however hard I scooted,
I still wore my bones.
Sapling
My father thought he could cure his knee
by swinging his injured leg over the kitchen table.
I'd collect my dolls to watch from the doorway.
He's ruptured his cruciate ligament, I'd say,
as if I understood the words.
From there I could touch
the taper and curve of his wooden crutches,
propped against a wall like saplings,
could imagine my black crayon
had made grains in the ash-wood,
lines headed one way then the other – a pirate's map.
If my father caught me looking I'd flip my gaze
into the garden, to the beginnings of a plum tree,
delicate in the sun.
It didn't draw me the way those crutches did.
Years later, that tree still stands. On visits home,
I'll settle on a blanketed lawn to sketch it,
adjust my pencil to suit the light, set the lines to be reborn.
I know this tree and its moods better than I knew my father.
Sometimes I'll think of his hands
gently planting the next-to-nothing of a sapling,
of his shadow where other shadows now fall.
It's as though I can see him.
A stranger picking plums.
water
when i become water
i shall be a lake full of fish and stone
upon me wooden boats will bob
children in bobble hats
will row around my perimeter
or across to my island –
almost too far away to see from land –
to swing on rope climb trees outpace horses
you'll know me
i shall be friendly and let each gaze
touch my honest surface
i won't be in a hurry
i'll dawdle
animals will come to drink from me
locals wrapped in goose-fat will swim my laps
or sit in deckchairs on grassy banks to read books
in spring and summer
belted kingfishers will build
nests they'll choose the side in the sun
once before rivers ran dry
and oceans died when the sky held rain
there were many lakes
swirling and fertile and deep
but i will be the only one
when i become water
Link to video for poem