This collection of writing from 51 northern writers is available from 19 Godric Drive Brinsworth Rotherham S60 5AN - enclose cheque for £4.50 payable to Northern Co-operative Writers
A very good idea!
Tuesday 16 March 2010
New Anthology
This collection of writing from 51 northern writers is available from 19 Godric Drive Brinsworth Rotherham S60 5AN - enclose cheque for £4.50 payable to Northern Co-operative Writers
A very good idea!
TWO POEMS FROM NORTHERN TYPE 51
(Here are two of the poems published in Northern Type 51
which has just been published. Sandwiches at the Seaside is a reflection on growing up in South Wales. After Mass on Sunday we would go to the beach - by bus. By the time the sandwiches were made and we were ready to queue for the bus the weather would always have changed. Bungee Resurrection is the product of a Summer lunchtime sitting in St Sampson's Square York and is self explanatory. The anthology uses an earlier version of this poem - the final version is used below.
SANDWICHES AT THE SEASIDE
Rain falling like gauze
dressings, through which
sky and shore seep together,
promiscuous as unveined blood;
drizzled too are the figures,
embossed in bas-relief, against
the concrete shelter walls:
gothic in the mock doric.
Imagine father, mother, me
in pac-a-macs, blue-creased
like engineering drawings;
motionless in down-mouthed
tableau, sorbing regret.
Sandwiches, salad, slabcake,
thermos; tupperwared milk,
sugar, salt, teaspoons too.
Meticulous commissary toil
of beach–going, slowly leaching
joy from the expectation of
this day; each leaf unfurled,
each tomato sliced, each bread
square spread, a cumulation
of cloud occluding the dwarf
white sun in the foremilk sky;
Slub in the shimmer-silk rain, we
are poor people at the seaside,
wearing this day as a sodden
overcoat, watching returning
buses, replete, sluice by,
the life within forever opaque.
BUNGEE RESURRECTION
Over St Sampson’s Square bells peal into an empty sky;
a slatted steel spider rig broods above four trampolines,
floating lily pads on a yorkstone pond. From a cats-cradle
of pulleys, guys, pillars, hang bungee ropes, blue and yellow
lianas trailing across this urban jungle - the tools of translation
from earth to sky. A boy boasts to a pretty blonde girl
how high he can bounce, how he can dance easy between
pavement and tree tops. Transfigured in sunlight he walks
the air currents; he demonstrates to us all his
backflips, rolls, tucks and somersaults: doubles, triples
ringing out clear and high above the plane trees.
His clapper legs unbound kick out in joy. He sinks down
on the cave –black rubber paten, pauses an eternity, swings
up, rising, arms outspread, haloed in treetop light,
all eyes follow his ascending; the blonde girl walks away.
which has just been published. Sandwiches at the Seaside is a reflection on growing up in South Wales. After Mass on Sunday we would go to the beach - by bus. By the time the sandwiches were made and we were ready to queue for the bus the weather would always have changed. Bungee Resurrection is the product of a Summer lunchtime sitting in St Sampson's Square York and is self explanatory. The anthology uses an earlier version of this poem - the final version is used below.
SANDWICHES AT THE SEASIDE
Rain falling like gauze
dressings, through which
sky and shore seep together,
promiscuous as unveined blood;
drizzled too are the figures,
embossed in bas-relief, against
the concrete shelter walls:
gothic in the mock doric.
Imagine father, mother, me
in pac-a-macs, blue-creased
like engineering drawings;
motionless in down-mouthed
tableau, sorbing regret.
Sandwiches, salad, slabcake,
thermos; tupperwared milk,
sugar, salt, teaspoons too.
Meticulous commissary toil
of beach–going, slowly leaching
joy from the expectation of
this day; each leaf unfurled,
each tomato sliced, each bread
square spread, a cumulation
of cloud occluding the dwarf
white sun in the foremilk sky;
Slub in the shimmer-silk rain, we
are poor people at the seaside,
wearing this day as a sodden
overcoat, watching returning
buses, replete, sluice by,
the life within forever opaque.
BUNGEE RESURRECTION
Over St Sampson’s Square bells peal into an empty sky;
a slatted steel spider rig broods above four trampolines,
floating lily pads on a yorkstone pond. From a cats-cradle
of pulleys, guys, pillars, hang bungee ropes, blue and yellow
lianas trailing across this urban jungle - the tools of translation
from earth to sky. A boy boasts to a pretty blonde girl
how high he can bounce, how he can dance easy between
pavement and tree tops. Transfigured in sunlight he walks
the air currents; he demonstrates to us all his
backflips, rolls, tucks and somersaults: doubles, triples
ringing out clear and high above the plane trees.
His clapper legs unbound kick out in joy. He sinks down
on the cave –black rubber paten, pauses an eternity, swings
up, rising, arms outspread, haloed in treetop light,
all eyes follow his ascending; the blonde girl walks away.
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