Tag Archives: creativity

Exit Strategy – guest poet

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It’s my pleasure to introduce this month’s guest poet Patrick Wright. Patrick and I met years ago at Manchester Poets. Earlier this month his poem Archive, inspired by Anselm Kiefer, featured on the blog. You’ll find Patrick’s biography at the end of the post.

Today I’m sharing more poems from his substantial collection Exit Strategy, a ‘vivid exploration of grief and loss’. Tamar Yoseloff said of the collection: ‘Patrick Wright is one of those rare poets who can translate the complex images of visual artists into precise and pitch-perfect language.’

Patrick has been inspired by artists past and present (Rousseau, Klee, Rachel Whitehead, J M W Turner), to mention some well-known names.

The collection uses a wide range of forms (couplets, tercets, stanza, sonnet, ghazal, prose poem) and makes excellent use of white space through columns and indents. WordPress can’t do justice to formatting. Therefore, I’ve chosen poems with a more traditional lay-out.

COLD DARK MATTER

After Cornelia Parker

Thanks to you I am learning to see again
through a sparseness of particles—

like how I learned to listen to an eyelid
twitch once yes and twice no through a coma.

Darkness I’ve come to realise is a privilege—
known at 4am & sleepless

the sun rising like a scalpel
& turning the room purple.

Somehow, we go on & somehow it never ends
& we go on like a double pendulum.

Perhaps love is like this fixed explosion.
Perhaps you’re nearer now than the word belief.

SHADOW OF A GIRL PLAYING WITH A HULA HOOP
After Giorgio de Chirico

It used to scare me, what this girl is doing,
or those around her, off in the blind field.
Seemingly a girl playing with a hula hoop,
or just a shadow, no source, just a shadow
next to a wagon, its backdrop here a dusty
plaza. Somewhere, I feel, from an upstairs
room, an eye looks at me. Somewhere, off
screen, a murder is taking place, this shade
a clue. Even so, things are too belated now,
this girl clearly a phantom and not a muse,
like she’s in a toy shop or inside its puzzle,
no girl playing so nonchalant with a hoop.
The sun, at these times, is no longer a sun,
more likely a lamp. My fingers are syllables.
And this pine table where the postcard sits
is full of knots, staring like gods from above.

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG’S UNTITLED

& already I see alpines
prise their way through the brutalist grey
of Chernobyl floors. Through the sarcophagus
they reach for sunlight. Maybe we only learn
what the burn of graphite means once blind.
I know you better after knowing disaster.

I’ve studied the colour theories
of Goethe and Albers where the wheel
& the wheel of life are a way to feel closer.
I am the stalk through the fallout, one that insists
on pushing its way & one that’s been patient.
On the surface we share the mark of detonation.

They say a town like this is void
though one pulse of a deer’s heart
makes it a plenum. A full spectrum will reveal
itself only when you’ve pledged to cease
hurting. Through this I see what you saw
when the sun set & made shades on a radiator.
We are both on the side of art.

WINTER LANDSCAPE WITH SKATERS AND BIRD TRAP
After Pieter Bruegel the Elder


I find no pleasure in the ice.
Everything about me lies still—save for murmurations.

Peasants weave between trees: each crystalline
like coral on a seabed.

I give you a winter landscape in place of a mirror.
The bird trap is my heart.

Soon it will be still, a skull in a crypt, lit by candles.
My hills are a wishbone. They undulate under great tension.

The skaters are insouciant, crows peck their shadows.
My face startles—a chance alignment of stars.

Skaters are on slippery ground
and if they should slip, they have nothing to cling onto.

Biography


Patrick Wright’s poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland, Poetry Wales, The North, Gutter, and The London Magazine. His debut collection, Full Sight of Her, was published in 2020 by Eyewear and nominated for the John Pollard Prize. His pamphlet, Nullaby (2017), was also published by Eyewear. His second collection, Exit Strategy (2025), was published by Broken Sleep Books. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the Open University.

Archive – guest poet – art

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Aus Herzen und Hirnen spriessen die Halme der Nacht, 2019-2020. Oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac, straw, gold leaf, wood and metal on canvas. Dims: 471 x 841,5 x 36 cm. Collection Voorlinden.

Our guest poet this month is Patrick Wright. As I was reading his collection Exit Strategy (Broken Sleep Books, 2024) I came upon the poem Archive and discovered that Patrick and I are both very interested in Kiefer’s work.

For me one of the highlights last year was visiting Bilderstreit, a major exhibition of Kiefer’s work at Voorlinden Museum, The Netherlands. A few weeks earlier I had watched the documentary that Wim Wenders made about Anselm Kiefer. I was blown away too by the film: it’s in black-and-white and one can watch it through 3D glasses.

Kiefer was born during the bombing raids in the final months of WWII. For him, everything exists somewhere in the cycle of death and rebirth. Whenever he creates a new work, he knows that one day he will destroy it: attacking it with a flamethrower, axe, bolt cutter, or red-hot liquid lead.

ARCHIVE
After Anselm Kiefer

Before his landscapes scorched by war and history, paintings of straw
and glue, your golden hair, Margarethe, before ‘Death Fugue’, I was back at
school, deep winter. In the yard blew a few stray crisp packets; seagulls
pecked at crumbs. The annex and fence had the look of an abandoned
camp, in Polish hinterlands. Through a cloakroom window I peered,
looking for a ghost of myself, then at a ghost of myself, as the sun
poked out from a cloud and the contours of bulimia gazed back, in
sepia tones. I saw the bullies too, with razored eyebrows, piercings,
fists in my gut, spit on my shoulder, the stench of Lynx, using queer
as an insult. With my SLR, I clicked more in hope than expectation.
I fumbled with fixative, the stop bath, the gelatin swell. My negatives
solarised. I kept re-visiting as a witness. Those days, I bit the inside
of my lip, stubbed cigarettes out on my arm. When the dysmorphic
class photos were framed, still as that winter, your golden hair, said the
Kiefer print, your golden hair, Margarethe.

Dimmet – guest poet

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It is a pleasure to introduce our February guest poet Rob Miles. I do not know Rob personally: we have been Facebook friends for some time. I bought a copy of his recent collection Dimmet which was published by Broken Sleep Books. See below the poems for Rob’s biography.

The glorious cover image of a murmuration was designed by Aaron Kent. Dimmet is a West Country word for dusk, twilight. Katherine Towers notes of the collection: ‘These are poems of great precision and delicacy’. I’ve chosen four poems which demonstrate these qualities.

Dimmet

His hands still bronzed, still
baling-raw. His voice
no longer snared, whisper-low
as decades ago, in this same field, he guided me

to not disturb that horse; circling
quietly, its half-scattered straw
an ingot melting, and my thin flames no match
for such a sunset anyway.

*

On this, another near-to-night, it’s clear
that he has no more kept his mind
from wayward sparks than I
have closed my eyes

before any fading fire, ever since recalled
a slow white shadow
steady on its dial
in the always almost dark.

Café Poem

Just when I think there is nothing
so boring

as someone else’s childhood
a toddler

in dungarees is guided
around our table

by his puppeteer parent, arms
up, in a vertical sky-dive, or

like a drunk, when walking
is more about not falling

every step forward
rewarded with a double high five.

I whispered to the dog

that she’d been a winner
a Crufts champion
 
at least twice. Once
she saw off a Dobermann, burglars, a werewolf
 
even the odd Sasquatch.
I reminded her

as her old eyes darkened     
that she had saved lives.

Making Way

A keeper, you said of the house, but I’d sensed everything
trying to make its way: those errant velvet fingers
from your orchid pots; the oak
putting on its chain mail of ivy and moss
and losing; the birds we fed still pinned
to their shadows; crisp wasps
electrocuted by views
through grubby double glazing, and you
just weeks before, showing your wrists
as if uncuffed, asking for my thoughts on a fragrance.

Biography

Rob Miles is from South Devon, and he lives in Leeds where he is Fellow in Film Studies in the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures at The University of Leeds. His poetry has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, recently in Stand, New Welsh Review, The Scores, Spelt, 14 Magazine, Ink Sweat and Tears, One Hand Clapping, Poetry Wales, and four Candlestick Press pamphlets. He has won various awards including the Philip Larkin Prize, judged by Don Paterson, the Resurgence International Ecopoetry Prize, judged by Jo Shapcott and Imtiaz Dharker, and the Poets & Players Prize, judged by Sinéad Morrissey.

Lucy Newlyn describes Dimmet as ‘the best collection of contemporary poetry I have read in a long while’, and John Glenday writes: ‘When it’s done as well as this, there’s nowhere on earth poetry can’t go.’

February – guest poet

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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.

Friendship

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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.

Speak Easy (Stephen Smythe) – guest poet

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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


Love Your Neighbour


The Fourth P (weebly.com)


Al Pacino of the Welsh Valleys (weebly.com)

Granny (weebly.com)

Poetry
Sommelier 2020 – Janus Literary

The Other (Michael Conley) – guest poet

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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.   

Website: https://ninepens.co.uk/2022-poets/michael-conley

Enxaneta – guest poet

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Credit: Makamuki0 via Pixabay

My thanks to poet Annie Muir for this seasonal poem from her pamphlet New Year’s Eve. Best wishes for your own New Year’s Eve – wherever you are. See you in 2023.

Enxaneta

In Barcelona it is 38 degrees
and a little girl screams with mimicked joy –

she is all eyelashes, all eyes,
all teeth and gums and tongue.

I hate her through the eyes of her big sister:
half a plastic broken heart tied around my neck,

I climb a fence to watch the castellers.
They huddle, arms up as if reaching for a throat,

others climb them like stairs, feet clinging to backs
like tadpoles on their first legs,

it doesn’t stop, more like ants than people
but with muscle and bone and white trousers,

two little girls heading for top,
one takes her place below, the other

is no longer a child but the star
at the top of a Christmas tree,

her arm pointing up is the man on the moon,
a clock striking midnight on New Year’s Eve.

She slides down the legs of her supporters,
relieving the mountains of tension from their shoulders.

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 has a podcast – Time for one Poem – aimed at complete beginners to poetry.
@time41poem

Food Match – guest poet

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Credit: Life-Of-Pix, Pixabay

A Christmas Day poem with my best wishes for the day and with my thanks to Matthew Stewart. In his pamphlet Tasting Notes (Happenstance Press) he pairs poems with notes about the Zaleo wines from Extremadura, a region with several UNESCO heritage sites.

Food Match

It glistens on the wooden stand,
a black trotter pointed upwards
as if offering a hoofprint.
Now cut a slice so thin that steel
is visible below the meat.

Place it across your tongue and wait
for the marbled fat to melt. Sip
un vino tinto. The tannin
grips, hugging the ham — both of them
start, suddenly, to magnify.

Credit: GerardBarcelona, on Pixabay

Biography:

Matthew Stewart works in the Spanish wine trade and lives between Extremadura and West Sussex. His second full collection is due from HappenStance Press in November 2023.

There are a few copies left of Tasting Notes. Contact Matthew direct via social media.

Winter Sun Speaks – guest poet

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I am delighted to feature the poem Winter Sun Speaks by Maggie Reed. We first met on a residential workshop several years ago. The picture of winter sun is also by Maggie.

Winter Sun Speaks

I birth my cry through cloud layers
push my weight low over the southern horizon,
strident, desperate, slanting over the hills
forking through trees, splintering ice.
I blind drivers on the school run.

How I ache for summer skies, to leap and arch
over the earth, spread light, energy and love.

But for now my shriek, my low level beam, insists
my right for the few hours I’m allowed
to crisp up these dark winter days.

Biography:

Maggie Reed lives in the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, having spent much of her life in Cumbria. Her current collection Let Small Wings Fly was self-published in 2021 to accompany the Arts Council funded travelling art exhibition ‘Mappa Marches’ that visited libraries and art centres across Herefordshire throughout 2022.

She has been published in several journals, including The North, Orbis, Poetry Birmingham, Pennine Platform, Three Drops from a Cauldron and Poetry Village, and has been included in anthologies such as This Place I Know (Handstand Press, 2018), Places of Poetry (One World, 2019), When All This is Over (Calder Valley Poetry, 2020), Poetry of Worcestershire (Offas Press, 2019) and In the Sticks (Offas Press, 2021). She won the Poem and a Pint competition (judge, Carrie Etter) in 2019.