Tag Archives: Manchester Poets

An egg does not fight a rock – Malagasy Proverb

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Sorting out boxes with books that moved with me from the UK, I found this small pamphlet. Manchester poets Steve Waling and Francesca Pridham edited poems by members of Manchester Poets. Copies were sold at the Didsbury Festival to raise funds.

Here Fran tells us about her connection with the Madagascar Development Funds and shares some wonderful proverbs – writing prompts for your poems, flash fiction, short stories.

Madagascar

“My first contact with Madagascar came in 2013, when my husband, interested primarily in the country’s unique wildlife, persuaded me to take part in a trekking holiday there. The scenery is awe inspiring. A melting pot situated between Asia, Africa and Australia, Madagascar is the mysterious land of the ancient baobab tree, a land where pachypodiums thrive, the cat-like fossa hunts and lemurs swing from tree to tree. The most revered lemur, the Indri’s strange call wails through the rainforests, echoing the ancient isolation of the island.

The people

Despite this beauty, what however most caught my heart were the people. There is little infrastructure in the country and most villages consist of a small collection of adobe houses made from the spectacular red mud that Madagascar is famous for. The people have nothing, just the land they live on and any livestock, such as chickens or the zebu cattle that represent their wealth. Their generosity and welcome though is infectious. I gave a biscuit to a small child, four others appeared instantly, and the biscuit was shared immediately.

Credit: Puabar via Pixabay

Water

Their water supplies are often limited to streams that trickle into small muddy ponds, polluted sometimes by cattle who too have to use the water. Standing by the side of a small dirt track nearing the end of my trekking holiday I drank thirstily from a litre bottle of water I’d brought with me. Staggering down the track was an old man with his grandson, pulling and pushing at a makeshift trolley, carrying four battered plastic water containers. They had walked five miles to the nearest water supplies and were coming back to the village. 

Credit: via Pixabay

The Madagascar Development Fund

When I returned to England, I started raising money to develop water supplies and build wells in Madagascar. We are lucky enough to work with The Madagascar Development Fund, a small charity run by the ex British Ambassador to Madagascar and have provided enough money now for four wells. The charity specialises in small projects which because of the charity’s experience are achievable and can bypass the complicated political situation in the country. 

We have been lucky enough to attend the opening of one of the wells where we were welcomed into the village by singing, dancing, and drumming. We were given a welcome feast and a poem, written specially for the event was read by a young man, resplendent in what looked like a doctor’s white coat!

Malagasy Proverbs

The Madagascan culture is infectious!  Their proverbs or ohabolana capture the learning and wisdom of centuries, inspiring both thought and writing! Enjoy the poems they produce!”

Truth is like sugar cane: even if you chew it for a long time it is still sweet.
Words are like eggs; when they are hatched they have wings.
Like the chameleon keep one eye on the future and one eye on the past.
Let your love be like the misty rains coming softly but flooding the river.
Those who know how to swim are the ones who sink.
Don’t be like a shadow: a constant companion, but not a comrade.
An egg does not fight a rock.
Only thin dogs become wild.
A canoe does not know who is king: when it turns over everybody gets wet.

Lockdown Latitudes – poems

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I am delighted to introduce this month’s guest poet Steven Waling. I first met Steven over 30 years ago after I’d moved to Manchester and joined the local poet’s group. Manchester Poets is the successor to South Manchester Poetry Group, started in 1978 by Dave Tarrant and still going strong!


His brief biography says ‘Steven Waling lives in Manchester and is apparently a stalwart of the Manchester poetry scene. His latest books are Disparate Measures 1: Spuds in History, and Lockdown Latitudes.’


From his most recent book Lockdown Latitudes I have chosen three different poems. Steven ‘writes overlooked life into vibrant presence’ says Scott Thurston. It is this quality I particularly admire and love in Steven’s writing.

Photo Credit: Steven Waling



Jesus Strolls Down Market Street

All he wants is new underwear and a coffee in Starbucks, time to himself to phone his dad and see he’s looking after himself during the lockdown. He sees they’re back again on the corner of Piccadilly Gardens and Market Street, shouting his name like a weapon at random strangers. He sneaks past, hand in front of his face. He’d like to shout in their faces, ask them what the hell they thought they were doing. Not that they’d recognise who he was, and anyway, these days he just gets embarrassed, avoiding the hassle of conflict that won’t get anywhere. Everyone ignores these men in old-fashioned suits sweating in the heat, lifting holy books like clubs to beat the sinful air away. So he goes to buy his pants, dashes into Primark before they clock him. People don’t, he thinks, realise how shy he is. He’d much prefer they found him by accident, when they needed him. Like later in the coffee shop: some old lady confused because they don’t take cash for drinks any more. Someone pays with his own card and when she looks up, they’re gone

Back to his bench to sleep with the pigeons

Snow Moon

Night stands at the tram stop
over head the moon a

soluble aspirin slowly dissolves
into the big black night goes

nowhere the spider in my right
eye is flashing again I walk

past the street they’re planting
non-aggressive trees spindly roots

spring flowers berries in autumn
that won’t disrupt the neighbourhood

kids kick the moon down the road i
wait for light rapid transit late

due to police incident keep my
distance from the moon its snow

face bending over the quick brown
cat crossing the tracks quick quick

Links to Steven’s books below:

Some Roast Poet – Manchester Poetry Magazine and Pamphlets (wordpress.com)

Steven Waling – Lockdown Latitudes (leafepresspoetry.com)

Mid-December

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garden_fox_in_snow

 

At our Manchester Poets Christmas meeting on Friday someone read Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. This poem, along with The Road not Taken, is one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems. Many people who are not poets have come across them.

Here is Questioning Faces, a short winter poem by Frost. It has marvellous precision and economy. It inspired my poem Mid-December. It is based on a real observation: seeing the fox in my rear garden under the light cast by the helicopter. Getting the end-rhyme across the two stanzas was an interesting task.

 
Questioning Faces

The winter owl just banked in time to pass
And save herself from breaking window glass.
And her wings straining suddenly aspread
Caught color from the last of evening red
In a display of underdown and quill
To glassed-in children at the windowsill.

 
Mid-December

Some people might pray for the day
to end, so they can cover glass
panels with ceiling-to-floor lined drapes,
or plain blinds that click into place.
Sitting by the radiator
I count the nights before Solstice,

think of the fox who’s come to stay.
She, padding across stiff white grass,
makes no such distinctions, escapes
gardens, water meadows; her face
now up to the police helicopter
beaming light on the world that is.