As I have an Irish surname and it’ll be St. Patrick’s Day this coming week, I am sharing this short poem. Many thanks to the editors of The Madrigal for accepting it for an Áitiúil: an anthology, jointly with the Martello Journal. It was published in September 2022.
World Book Day is on the 23rd of April. In the UK it takes place on the 2nd of March to avoid clashes with spring school holidays and St. Georges’ Day.
A fellow poet introduced me to the American poet Ted Kooser, now in his early 80s. His style is accomplished, yet extremely simple. My current bedtime reading is his poetry collection Winter Morning Walks: one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2001).
In the late 90s Kooser developed cancer. He gave up his insurance job and writing. When he began to write again, it was to paste daily poems on postcards he sent to his friend and fellow writer Jim Harrison. In the preface, Kooser tells us ‘I began to take a two-mile walk each morning. I’d been told by my radiation oncologist to stay out of the sun for a year because of skin sensitivity, so I exercised before dawn, hiking the isolated country roads near where I live.’ These country roads are in Nebraska.
The poems cover a period from 9 November until 20 March. In the poems Kooser doesn’t directly talk about the illness. He does so through metaphor. All the poems include a brief description of the weather. The clear and precise observation gives them a haiku quality.
Here is his postcard for march 5:
Very windy and cold.
A flock of robins bobs in the top
of a wind-tossed tree,
with every robin facing north
and the sky flying into their faces.
But this is not straightforwardness,
nor is it courage, nor an example
of purpose and direction
against insurmountable odds.
They perch like this
to keep their feathers smooth.
I’m not keen on them, so I’m not buying now they’re 4 Euro each. Dutch growers have kept their glasshouses empty because of the cost of gas and electricity. I was lucky, though, to be accepted as a patient by a GP practice in the town I moved to. Lucky also that my journey to the implantologist involves two trams: there were strikes again on regional buses last week.
This poem, from a recent workshop, is a snapshot of life in The Netherlands.
Word jij onze nieuwe collega?
Outside every restaurant and café two blackboards:
one with a menu, the other asking for a sous-chef,
a washer-upper, or bar staff.
Freek van Os, the expensive plumbing business
is even renting lit-up space by the side
of a bus shelter. They need a planner,
and also have two technical vacancies.
Manda, my hairdresser, had found
a 42-year-old Afghan woman, single parent,
career-changer. When I came in a month later,
she’d changed her mind. Legal cases are abandoned,
judges are dead or retiring. As are many GP’s.
They’re not signing the new contracts, anyway.
Not much the government or the insurers can do.
People want to work fewer hours, it’s said, not more.
A seasonal poem and sampler by Rebecca Cullen who is our March guest poet. It’s from her collection A Reader’s Guide To Time. I very much enjoyed Rebecca’s take on February and hope you do too.
This coming Tuesday it’s Valentine’s Day. Here is an early poem that hasn’t featured on the blog before. It was published in the Tees Valley Writer, Autumn 1995, and Highly Commended in their annual competition.
On the beach
Against the sinking sun gulls ride the waves.
Our dogs bark and chase their tails.
Try to run with a lone jogger who braves
the east wind whistling. Your son trails
in your wake, attempts big steps. Laughter peals:
a scene lifted straight from some fairy tale.
Heaped grey boulders mimic a colony of seals.
Not long before love winters in my heart.
I need to tell you how it feels
to be together, yet growing apart.
Your craggy face seems so much older
clouded in a bluish hue. I brace myself to start
as you place a hand on my shoulder
but all I can say is It’s getting colder.
Speak Easy was formed at Stretford’s Sip Club by Dave Hartley in August 2015 as a spoken word open mic before the team of Andy N, Amanda Nicholson and Steve Smythe joined forces to take it over at the end of 2017. The night moved to Chorlton Cum Hardy’s Dulcimer Bar in August 2020 and has carried on being a welcoming, supportive, friendly and encouraging night since welcome to both experienced and newcomers with all acts given equal opportunity to perform with everybody who reads being headliners.
(See the end of the post for details and links to social media for Speak Easy, Andy N, Amanda Nicholson.)
Andy N
Andy N is the author of 8 full length poetry collections including ‘Return to Kemptown’ and ‘The End of Summer’ and co-runs Chorlton Cum Hardy’s always welcoming Spoken Word Open mic night ‘Speak Easy’. He runs / co-runs Podcasts such as Spoken Label, Cloaked in the Shadows and Storytime with Andy & Amanda and does ambient music under the name of Ocean in a Bottle.
Three x Winter Haiku
Walking in darkness
your front door briefly lights up
in the heavy rain.
*
Ripping out the trees
lighting hit the forest hard
flooding the river
*
Sleeping in winter
the trees hibernate alone
awaiting for Spring.
*
Amanda Nicholson
Amanda Nicholson is an author, poet, podcast co-host and copywriter. She has written several books as Amanda Steel, including Ghost of Me. Amanda’s poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio Manchester. She Has a Creative Writing MA, and has had articles published by Jericho Writers, Reader’s Digest UK, Ask.com, and Authors Publish.
Do All These Labels Make Me Look Fat?
Like blank sticky labels pressed to my skin
I write on some myself
While people scribble their own words
Over time, the ink fades on some
and others fall off
The one labelled daughter is half peeled off now
Older labels remain stuck fast
But buried by new labels
So people rarely see
Unless they get close enough
And there is always room for more
Some are like tattoos
Only more painful
And others wash away easily
Links
Speak Easy:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/speakeasymanchester
Twitter: https://twitter.com/speakspokenword
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/speakeasypoetryspokenword/
Recordings of Night: https://andyn.bandcamp.com/
Andy N Poet:
His blog: http://onewriterandhispc.blogspot.com/
His books can be found on Amazon etc.
Ocean in a Bottle is at: oceaninabottle.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andynstorytellerpoet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aen1mpo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andynpoet/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andynwriter
Amanda Nicholson
Her blog is: https://amandasteelwriter.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaSteelWriter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Amanda_S_Writer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandasteel37/
Last Saturday I had to go to the pharmacy in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote to get some over-the-counter medication. It’s an ode of sorts alright…
Normal service will be resumed…
To ‘my’ condition
I salute you: you have staying power.
You arrived out of nowhere 28 years ago.
How odd you only woke up in Manchester,
while you slept through London.
I refuse to call you mine, the two ‘ ’
symbolise handcuffs, shackles.
On long journeys (flights, trains)
I wear dark trousers, a dark dress.
You have grounded me many times,
I’ve been bent over, clutching my bike,
scared to go to the shops in case I
don’t make it to a loo.
An acronym close to that computer firm.
There are dress codes at IBM, I have you know.
Irritable? Yes, often. I’ve been pissed off,
imagine bowels as a curled-up, snarling cobra.
Syndrome is, I believe, where spectators
gather to see retired pilots take off
in noisy small planes. Banking
is a dangerous manoeuvre.
Friendship is the theme of this year’s Poetry Week, celebrated in The Netherlands and the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium through 400+ events. It starts on Thursday 26 January. Miriam Van Hee (B) and Hester Knibbe (NL), two poets who have been friends for almost 40 years were commissioned to write five poems each for a book. In a recent interview they said that trust and curiosity are key elements for a friendship to endure and last.
Anyone who spends over 12,50 Euro on poetry books during Poetry Week will be given a copy. It’s not hard to spend that sort of money, as poetry books are expensive in The Netherlands!
Here is my poem on the theme of friendship: memories of a long weekend in Vienna in 1994.
Vienna
I would gladly return,
walk with Wendy through
the rain to the museum,
see the Hunters on the Hill –
tired, wet dogs, in the Little Ice Age
when frozen birds fell from the sky.
I would gladly go back there,
view grey buildings slide past,
hear the clanging bell.
Schwedenplatz, umsteigen.
A trolley bus securely attached
to the two lines above.
It’s a pleasure to introduce Stephen Smythe. He has been involved with Speak Easy since it started (at the SIP Club in Stretford) and that’s where we met. The SIP Club closed during the lockdown and Speak Easy then moved online. I was able to take part from my caravan in The Netherlands, along with poets and writers from London and the US and elsewhere.
Stephen Smythe is a Manchester writer who achieved an MA in Creative Writing from Salford University, in 2018. He was shortlisted in the Bridport Prize, Flash Fiction category, in 2017, and was also longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, in 2018. He won The Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, in 2022, and was placed third in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition, in 2021, for his 1000-word story.
His book of forty x forty word stories published by Red Ceilings Press is due out later this year.
Here are two prize winners to give you a taste…
KLEPTO
Bridget took stuff from her work colleagues after they’d gone home. Pens, post-it pads, sweets, even family photos. People suspected her, but couldn’t prove anything. When the company introduced hot desking, Bridget became confused and sometimes stole from herself.
(Winner of the Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, 2022)
COLD CALL
‘Wait!’ Dad yelled down the phone.
He put his specs on. ‘That’s better, I can hear you now.’
He listened intently, frowned deeply, then hung up.
‘A conservatory?’ He snorted. ‘Your mother would kill me– if she were alive.’
(Second place in the Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, 2019)
Links to 1000-word stories
The Other has been running in Manchester since January 2016. Michael Conley and Eli Regan organise the event where writers are put in pairs to read and perform each other’s work, with plenty of time beforehand to prepare. It is a fascinating idea.
During the pandemic The Other moved online and I took part in a memorable Zoom session where I was paired up with Adam Farrer. The Other is now ‘live’ again. Dates are on Facebook and Twitter. Sessions also raise funds for Manchester Central Foodbank.
It’s a pleasure introducing Michael and a sample of his writing.
Michael Conley is a poet and prose writer from Manchester. His first prose collection, “Flare and Falter” was published by Splice and longlisted for the 2019 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. His latest work is a poetry pamphlet published by Nine Pens, called “These Are Not My Dreams…”
At The Park, A Grown Man Has Got His Head Caught In The Railings
Possibly somebody loves,
or at some point has loved,
this man. But it’s hard to imagine
right now. It’s hard to imagine
that for most of his life
he hasn’t been stuck
at this ninety-degree angle,
fists flailing, jeans sagging
at the waist. He’s so angry
with the railings,
with the soft mud under his boots
and especially with the teenagers
who are laughing at him
from the picnic benches.
You could empty a whole tub
of vegetable oil onto his neck
and tug him out by his belt loops
but he wouldn’t thank you for it.
And of course you can’t ask him
what he was trying to do
in the first place.
He doesn’t know
what his pain looks like
from the outside.
Acacia Publications 