Tag Archives: Broken Sleep Books

Storks and happiness…

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Credit: Michael Schwarzenberger via PIxabay

Storks are said to bring happiness. The bird has been the official emblem of The Hague for centuries. Until the beginning of the last century, storks with clipped wings walked the many fish markets in the city, keeping the streets clean.

I hope this new year will bring health and happiness to you and those you hold dear. The poem is from my new collection Remembering / Disease published last October by Broken Sleep Books. It first appeared in the online magazine Dust, edited by Tara Wheeler.

Storks also feature in my poem High wind. It was selected as one of 20 poems by a jury for the Poetry Archive’s Poetry Archive Now! Wordview 2022. You can see and hear me read it here.

Waiting

The water meadows
are waiting
for the storks to return

always invisible
the other side
of her face

in this book
there is snow
on every page

even an old potato
can be turned
into a Christmas stamp

the naming of colours
is not a science.
I vote for bird’s nest grey

Crab Snowglobe

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Credit: Kurious via PIxabay

Each Sunday in December there will be seasonal poems on the blog. For a few years I lived in the Withington area of Manchester, so I recognised the shop mentioned in Annie Muir’s poem. It’s from her pamphlet New Year’s Eve, published by Broken Sleep Books in 2021.

Crab Snowglobe

Thrown in with shoelaces and paracetamol,
a souvenir from Copson Street pound shop –

this rusty orange crab on a rock
with specks of glitter resting

in every nook and cranny.
Around the base there are footprints in sand

and another, smaller crab,
exactly alike except I can touch it.

Inside your hard, glass globe
you seem to be in some other dimension

like the reflection in a mirror,
or memory.

Either dormant or ecstatic –
when I shake you up

it is for a moment New Year’s Eve,
your pincers grasping to catch the confetti

that floats around your head
in kaleidoscope slow motion.

Then, when each piece has fallen, you wait
for something else to happen.

Biography


Annie Muir lives in Glasgow. Her debut pamphlet New Year’s Eve was published by Broken Sleep Books. Pre-pandemic she handed out poems on the street outside local libraries, and she has a podcast – Time for one Poem – aimed at complete beginners to poetry.
@time41poem

Launch of Remembering / Disease

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Today is the publication day of my third collection. This evening, starting at 19:30 UK time, there will be a Zoom launch, organised by the publisher, Broken Sleep Books. There is a link on their website to Eventbrite.


Four other poets will also be reading, to launch their pamphlet or collection: Caleb Parkin, Chrissy Williams, Taylor Strickland, and Chris Laoutaris.


The manuscript was awarded a Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North in June 2020. That raised my spirits during the lockdown. It was a unanimous decision by the Board of Broken Sleep Books to accept the collection for publication. The delicate cover design by Aaron Kent is a great match for the minimalist content.


My poems and I have found at Broken Sleep Books, and I am looking forward very much to the reading this evening.

Remembering / Disease

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Design, Aaron Kent

My third collection, the award-winning Remembering / Disease, is now available for pre-order with Broken Sleep Books

The poetry entries for the Northern Writers’ Award were judged by the poet Vahni Capildeo. They selected my manuscript, along four others, and praised the ‘beautiful minimalism’ and ‘intriguing poise’.

Here is the poem Secrets which is a prologue:

Secrets

This secret is always circling.
Certain seasons and times of day are its allies.
That much I am allowed to reveal.

This secret can seep through concrete.
A dark liquid is left that even the sun cannot dry.
The spot cleaning burns your hands.

This secret has its own language.
Each secret needs an interpreter.
Few are willing.

This secret is always looking,
the one in the secret always
on the lookout.

These secrets yearn to Rest in Peace.
Bring them flowers, bring ferns,
bring them feathers so they can fly away.

Sirens

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Credit: AdAdriaans via Pixabay


Tomorrow is the first Monday of the month when the 4,000+ alarms through the Netherlands are tested. This alarm-and-warning system was set up after the Second World War. The monthly test stopped after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and for a period the sirens were only tested once a year. The government wanted to introduce a warning system by mobile telephone, but this did not prove effective. So, from September 2003 the monthly sounds can be heard for exactly 1 minute and 26 seconds.

The alarms aren’t rung if the first Monday falls on a religious or national public holiday, or on the national Remembrance Day of 4 May. This month, the Dutch people will be reminded beforehand that the sound is just a test.


On Monday I am sending the final manuscript of my collection Remembering / Disease to Aaron Kent at Broken Sleep Books. I have chosen a poem from the new book that includes a siren and want to thank Isabelle Kenyon of Fly on the Wall Press for first selecting it.

Credit: TBIT via Pixabay

Voice

I’m scared of the voice that tells me to let go of the wheel
it’s an old man’s harsh gritty cold pushing me
that time Monday sunny A487 heading for Porthmadog

black figures carry bags home whatever home might mean

silence only sirens calling the dog-end of the year

falling is kind of doing something
you can fall sideways head-first backwards
I have worked all these years to stay upright
running like a rabbit on a metal track