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Sunday, January 13
New haiga by Maggie West
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 13 Jan 2008 01:18 PM GMT
 • Maggie West says "After
I had been writing short poems for some years, I discovered haiku while
studying formal western-style calligraphy. In 1992, I became
a member of The British Haiku Society and was thereby
introduced to other forms of Japanese poetry. I
much prefer the brevity and simplicity of the Japanese style. I feel they have much to teach us, from the subtle, non-judgmental
haiku, wit of senryu, heartfelt emotion of the tanka, to the
collaborative aspects of renga poetry. Many of these short poems have a greater depth than first perceived. Ancient Japanese poems,
speak intimately and effortlessly to us across space, time
and language barriers. After reading these, other types of
poetry seem lacking in many ways.
"Working mainly
with inks and other water-based media, I have always enjoyed 'mark
making'; transforming the tactile working surface using many
types of brushes, pens, quills and sticks as necessary. I try
to make my handwriting on the haiga as legible as possible without
being formal. As I come from a 'western art' background, my
work is not traditional in the Japanese sense; however, I try
to be true to the spirit of haiga." For more information visit Maggie's website at www.maggieonthebeach.co.uk
Friday, January 11
Fox by Pamela Moyle
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 11 Jan 2008 12:33 PM GMT
Fox
Thoughts elsewhere, eyes happened to glance
in your direction.
Dominated now, my mind
absorbing
your sleek, shining perfection.
Motionless figure, pricked ears,
wary and wanton
a
preyed on predator:
king of the fields.
Your brilliant eyes compelling contact,
appraising, timeless, unblinking.
An
indefinable something passes between us,
then
you dismiss me
to resume your stealthy slinking.
While I
now enchanted remain
alone
with my thoughts again.
• Pam Moyle say "Nature is the main inspiration for my poems. I've been published by Chester Poets, Chester Vista and Peace & Freedom Magazine."
Wednesday, January 9
Cat by Catherine Busby
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 09 Jan 2008 11:11 AM GMT
Cat
My daughter purrs and rubs her head against my chin.
It means she wants some love.
She laps soya milk from a saucer.
Nights are sleepless
Her brain can't rest
And so we start the day with bleary eyes.
Tired miaows.
Even KittyCats must go to school.
Some times she stays
Curled tightly in a ball
She lies amidst our cats
And speaks softly with them.
On those days I teach
And stroke her
As we learn the circulatory system and
My own heart expands.
I reach around and hold her close.
Place my lips against her skin.
Breathe in her scent
And close my weeping eyes.
I cover her with fluttery kisses from babyhood.
We giggle and she chatters like a pull-string toy.
Her mania continues,
Wild laughter.
Animal sounds.
My beautiful daughter wings her feral way.
And as her pendulum begins to swing
I keep our family clock ticking,
Real-time.
My life is on hold, happening to me.
I watch from someplace else.
And still her brain can’t rest.
Her eyes and face are blank.
She mews.
"Mummy, KittyCat is tired."
Catatonic.
Our tears fall.
When I seek help
I am handed a magic wand inside a blister pack.
My daughter calls to me.
Thick black words,
Swirling shapes and heavy patterns
Adorn her walls.
Deep-grey eyes reach inside my face.
"Mummy, Help me."
She is tripping.
Terrified.
I have no antidote.
"My brain is broken, isn't it?"
She knows she soars and plunges
And wishes that she didn't.
She knows that people laugh and stare
And I tell her, "Yes, my love, they do."
The doctors talk of Lithium.
I cannot make my daughter better.
I love her.
I accept her.
I enjoy her.
She is my delight, my muse,
My uninhibited beauty.
My daughter purrs.
It means she wants some love.
What a clever KittyCat she is.
• Catherine Busby says "I live in Somerset, in a small grey town, but hope to flee to a place with strong winds and seagulls one day... I have two teenage daughters and so consequently spend a lot of time driving! I use that time to allow my mind to wander freely. I always follow the Highway Code."
Monday, January 7
New poetry by Gary Kissick
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 07 Jan 2008 06:24 PM GMT
Eight Dream Errata
• It’s not a case of awaiting
your arrival at Drummer Street Station.
We’re together again on the Thames.
• Some anomaly of space and time
below deck and the waterline
makes the narrowboat wider
within than without.
And since I see you
now and then,
you’re eighteen
and maybe ten.
• We turn a corner like a clock,
climb eight steps in a single lock.
• The boat is so stealthily slim
we straddle it, father and son.
It steers itself
like a life.
• We glide, at night, through the moon,
which, as you know, is forbidden.
• The river’s lovely,
wide and deep,
and all that’s passed
clasps hands in sleep.
• The sky is brighter for the storm.
Downstream lies unbroken, still.
Cygnets give birth to their swans.
• You say you love me,
and always will.
• Gary Kissick's latest collection Another Kissing Couple
Has Exploded was published by Gatehouse Press last year.
Sunday, January 6
New concrete poetry by Chris Major
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 06 Jan 2008 05:14 PM GMT
Friday, January 4
Two poems by Deborah Bates
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 04 Jan 2008 10:14 AM GMT
Vita Sessuale
Sexuality oozes from
unrestrained pinks –
contradicted with the
delicious bass line
of masculinity.
A square jaw line backdrops
pinched ruby nipples,
on a chalky white base, whilst
over a foxtrot of heartbeats
and a plethora of sheets,
cabernet soaked lips
reach for a partner.
The painter’s palette blends,
as the tempo quickens –
with the desirable colour
being you.
Discount Teabags
A tramp sits.
There sits the tramp
of Sauchiehall Street.
The face familiar to thousands,
but known as nothing;
his name superfluous.
As he pulls at his prized
woollen hat,
I see that the malty coppers
in his box, amount
to a cup of tea.
But not one from Starbucks.
• Deborah Bates says "I'm 20, am Scottish but moved to study Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. Ambition to earn my money through writing poetry about the way I see life."
Thursday, January 3
Book review by Ken Head
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 03 Jan 2008 10:59 AM GMT
Instead of Silence – reviewed by Ken Head
Instead of Silence: Selected Poems: Miriam Van hee
Translated by Judith Wilkinson
Shoestring Press, 2007
www.shoestringpress.com
ISBN 13: 978 1 904886 45 7
ISBN 10: 1 904886 45 0
Paperback £8.95 , 74pp
Miriam Van hee was born in Ghent in 1952 and is widely regarded as one of Belgium’s finest poets, although she writes both in Flemish and Dutch. Having studied Slavic Philology at the University of Ghent, she has since worked as a lecturer in Russian at the Interpreters’ Academy in Antwerp. She has published eight collections to date, together with translations of the work of other important poets including Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam. She has also won a number of awards and seen her work translated into French, Polish, Swedish and Lithuanian, with Austrian and Mexican collections in preparation. Instead of Silence offers poems selected from six collections published between 1980 and 2002 and represents not only the first translation of her poetry into English, but also an acknowledgement of the standing of her translator, Judith Wilkinson, a poet herself, whose first chapbook of translations from Flemish and Dutch poetry, In An Unguarded Moment, was published online in 2006 by www.languageandculture.net
In her introduction to this edition, Wilkinson remembers an email from Van hee in which the poet states her preference for plainer, more everyday translation and says of her work in general that she likes “a certain bareness”. The truth of this becomes apparent, because many of the poems have no titles, make no use of the upper case and are punctuated entirely by rhythm, line breaks and the flow of thought. They are spare but at the same time highly focused, sober but allusive, brief but needing to be read with care. Nothing is made easy and it remains for the reader to explore the spaces between the words, where interpretation takes place. A good example is the second of two short poems jointly entitled The Camp, from the 1980 collection Interior and quoted here in full:
that I never walked there
in the mornings in the fog
that I have always worn
clothes that fitted nicely that I
have read books that belonged to me
that I have never stolen
that I have never had to choose.
Rather than explain that overwhelming last line with its rare and very deliberate use of the full-stop after the final crucial verb, this reviewer would remind the reader of William Styron’s great novel Sophie’s Choice and say no more. Good poems make demands on their readers, take us to places we might not always choose to visit and one of the effects of Van hee’s economy and brevity is to create perspectives that encourages such difficult but important journeys. As she writes in Photograph, “a film does not end/without an explanation”. Our lives are intricate patchworks quilted by many hands and these clear-sighted, compassionate poems explore with unflinching concentration the sometimes painful complexities of the stitching. They meditate, both sombrely and lyrically, upon the business of being human, crossing many landscapes, bearing moving witness to the effects of war and social change, of loss and dispossession, laying bare the experience of modern urban life, of love and family. They deserve to be widely read.
See sidebar for cover shot
Wednesday, January 2
Two poems by Geoff Stevens
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 02 Jan 2008 05:56 PM GMT
A WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS (EXCEPT ONE)
Visiting the past you gave birth to Christ
had John the Baptist's head brought to you
submitted Samson's hair to a Number One cut
bared your breasts in Minoa
seduced Mark Anthony in Memphis
stepped in to kiss Nelson on the deck of The Victory
and committed suicide with Hitler.
So why can't you think of anything to do
when you are with me?
GIORGIO CHIROCO'S PORTRAIT OF APPOLLINAIRE
It could just as well have been
a preview portrait of Marlon Brando
set in stone
method acting a bust
and wearing black sunshades and stoicism.
It absorbs everyone's attention
the slightly chubby face
the receding hairline
the full sensuous lips
but mainly the muscular latency
that is perceived
though only the head is shown.
• West Bromwich-based Geoff Stevens is a poet and publishes the Purple Patch poetry magazine.
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