View Article  Two works to celebrate the arrival of spring
14 Days From Namibia
 

From home in Twee Rivier we journey;
‘n toer van een plek tot 'n ander’
No roads through borders,
just sand.
And dry trees shelter carcass
as paths stay veiled.
No help from Perrier,
San Pellegrino has deserted us.
Mato Mato behind us
ons vorder van een stadium tot 'n ander.
To Upington we journey


• Matt Ford is a Creative Writing student at Winchester University.
View Article  New haiga by Alexis Rotella
View Article  Two poems by John D Robinson
Mid-air


The
mid- air
awakening
of
a
dreaming
swallow
caught
peaceful
in
her
shadows
of
elegance.


~ ~ ~ ~


Portugal Portrait
 

Such a breeze could
spell romace & bring
 
An end to the flowers
that move in shatter'd
 
Forms of promises
 
& shatter'd promises
bring the dust of old friends
 
That dance in the neglect'd
corner's of a sleepless night
 
& old friends make history.


• John D Robinson is a UK-based poet & publisher. He has published two books of poetry Time Signatures and Sky – Fall Blossom, with a third due in near future. His work has been printed in approx 100 small press magazines, journals, newspapers, poetry readings & work-shops in schools, colleges & community centres & bars.
View Article  Poems (CD) by David Francis
This CD of poetry and music by New York poet David Francis has been sitting in my in-tray for an appallingly long time. Nothing personal David, it's just that the last time I received a CD of poetry and music to review, it turned out to be recited by mad people – and played by mad people. Nothing could be more different than this CD. Called Poems, the poetry is good. The music is good, in a folk/acoustic style (which in some respects has the mellowness of some Steely Dan tracks). And the production values of the CD are excellent.

There are a total of 18 short poems (and equally short musical accompaniments) on the CD, all prompted by a 22 date tour of the UK he did in 2006, which gave him an opportunity to revisit the places in and around London where he used to live and write many years previously. Listening to this CD is both a relaxing and thought provoking experience – and one I'm going to be happy to do again. I'm not sure to the distribution details for the CD however you can order it online from CD Baby for $15 (about £8.00).
www.cdbaby.com/all/davidfrancis

There are also some sample tracks you can hear free of charge. Here is one of them – In a Storm... http://audio.cdbaby.com/21af9def/mp3lofi/d/a/davidfrancis3-10.mp3

View Article  Two poems by Maureen Wheldon
TO CHANGE THESE HOURS


She reaches the gate of four pearls
Rattles the bars.

Sees through a fence of fire
One star.

And the sun dancing in gold shoes.

In the east
Helios is driving the four horses.

She would change these hours
But knows:

To pick bright flowers
She must never look back.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


DO NOT BELIEVE ALL


Do not believe all
you read in history :
it has long been out of date.

But listen to the wind,
observe the sun, birds,
and wide, wide sky.

And somewhere,
on a far-off beach,
where ocean grinds and
washes rocks to fine sand;
a pink shell, a periwinkle.
Here history winks her eye.

Now walk and read.



• Maureen Wheldon's poetry has appeared in various small press magazines and her collection To Change These Hours published by Kite Modern Poetry Series.
View Article  Picture in Grey - a prose poem by Mandy Pannett
PICTURE IN GREY


There’s the sense of a river behind a low wall; footsteps on leaf-fall, grey light through the mist. There are hours ahead for the unshed rain. This is an island of pavements and derelict blocks; a low landscape, no colour here. Nothing to do but wait for the lamps to be lit.
 
Flies in the buttermilk whispers the song. Something is scratching and digs. On the Embankment a stone lion is lost in the fog. His paw is upturned. He begs.

I detest my past and anyone else’s mutters Magritte as he sketches the lion. Thinks about gunfire and troops moving in. Adds a man by the parapet with his back to us; he is staring over the edge. Gives him black wings from the shoulder blades down to the ground. Considers a title: Pea soup, spleen of Paris, Philadelphia, mal du pays… Thickens the fog.

Bats scuttle out as old lamps are lit. There are gaps in the masonry and a chill wind. A pigeon lies dead in a scatter of leaves. There are hours ahead for the rain.


• Mandy Pannett runs an arts cafe, supports two local writing groups and enjoys giving readings and running writing workshops. She has two poetry collections from Oversteps Books: Bee Purple and Frost Hollow.
View Article  Two poems by Amanda Weeks
Scrubber


From the minute I wake up
I can hear her sweeping brush against the pavement
And wonder how many particles of dirt
Have settled since the last cleansing exercise
Eight hours ago.

Then she moves on to the windowsill
The paint faded through constant rubbing.
Next is the turn of the lamppost
All graffiti is executed
And Goldie the labrador’s piss is bleached.

Her windows, already gleaming
Are wiped to within an inch of breaking –
Nothing must spoil her view of the street.
She needs to see if litter is dropped
Or blown from less clean terraces.

The ice cream man parks outside
And she watches like a hawk.
Once, his predecessor dropped a wafer
She is on tenterhooks until the van
And its unruly customers have gone.

She waits for her husband to come home
Through the back door –
He’s not allowed to use the front passage
For fear of spoiling the carpet.
But he doesn’t come home, so she cleans some more.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Hindsight


If I knew then what I know now
I’d wear short skirts and sleep around,
Because when you’re young and good looking
With big tits and can drink more than the boys
People call you a slag.
So with hindsight I should have done Darren
And Paul and Craig and all the others
Who said I’d done them
And got some pleasure to compensate
For the annoyance
Of being called a slag,
And squares whispering about me
And boys constantly phoning me
And hanging around my house
Which made my father shout
And call me a slag.

If I knew then what I know now
I would have gone on tour
With that rock star I snogged, back stage
In Newport Centre in 1994,
And said “bollocks” to you
And seen the World, had free drugs
And good sex. Probably.
If I’d known that all the while
Whilst I felt guilty and dirty
You were seeing someone else –
A fat girl with crooked teeth
I would have gone to San Francisco,
Left you crying, smashing up our home
With all your friends comforting you,
Giving you free drugs
And calling me a slag.


Amanda Weeks lives in Pontypridd, South Wales. She began writing eight years ago when, at 27, she decided to pack in her job as a collector, invent a pile of A levels and study creative writing and drama at university. She has had several short stories published in anthologies. She has written for several music magazines. Her Welsh-language screenplay Catastroffi was broadcast on S4C in 2006, and she's had a further two screenplays optioned to Tornado Films.


View Article  It's that way - by Mike Montreuil
IT'S THAT WAY


i.

the day begins
never in the way
we imagine

it would be
too predictable

even the love
I have for you
is that way


ii.

the shower water is hot
more so than yesterday

I wanted it that way


iii.

I tried to set
a place for you
at my breakfast table

some things are impossible
like a morning kiss


iv.

it may be Monday morning
but the streets are deserted

I willed it that way
they needed to be clear
of all obstructions

my thoughts are filled with snow


v.

the phone at my desk is silent
why do you not call?

I am here
you are there

Is this our waiting game?


vi.

the noon time sun is high

someone made it so
we can now find our way
to each other

my imagination does not
take a back seat


vii.

it's you on the phone!
I waited all day
to hear your voice

you will be here
in a matter of minutes


viii.

the sunset is much too early

our minutes
seem like seconds

it's always that way
we knew it
right from our reluctant start


ix.

the alarm clock rings
morning already

I am warm
underneath my blankets

my memory of you
fades like the dream
we just lived



• Mike Montreuil lives in Ottawa (Canada) and can be found at a hockey rink cheering on his son. (He'd probably feel at home in the UK today – this is being posted on Easter Sunday and its snowing.)
View Article  Easter - a concrete poem by Chris Major


• Chris Major is a regular contributor to IS&T.
View Article  Two new works by Deborah Gordon
The Tiger







The Paper Clip Men


Slightly bent

And – spent around
The edges
The paper clip men
Dance – wildly on
The ledges.

 

This is Deborah Gordon's second appearance on IS&T, she says "I began writing at the age of seven and since then have never really stopped. I like to experiment with all different styles and mediums and the concept of movement."

View Article  Two poems by Bernice Lever
SPIT & POLISH


How I hated the sizzling splash of phlegm
each morning as Mom lifted the black lid of our kitchen stove,
spitting into the burning wood flames.

I could forgive her home-rolled
Macdonald's tobacco cigarettes
dangling from the corner
of her firm mouth as she stirred
pots of soup, porridge, even gravy, ashes drifting finely to bubbling
pots or our flowered linoleum.

Those days, Mom's spit on corner
of her hankie wiped smudges  or tears
from our chubby cheeks, just waiting for our Saturday turn with the one family bath water
in the same old galvanized tub.
Polish too quickly, too lightly,
and my teenage house work was labelled,
as Mom said, "just a lick and a promise" that would have to do until tomorrow;
not the shiny perfection of "spit & polish" with serious intent
on uncle's  military  boots.



ARMOUR


Walking alone allows
their annoying, sniffing, licking
dogs to hinder my stride,
while their silly snide asides
drill my ear drums,
shatter my thoughts.

Shutting up windows and doors
keeps their superior tones, even inferior pets, mediocre offspring, outside this wooden cabin, a sanctuary,
silencing their jealousy
of my places of peace.
Wrapping myself safely inside
my rusty station wagon,
believing glass, green vinyl,
especially enamelled metal will protect me against my neighbours,
I have the radio on high
so it smothers their complaints
of my missing muffler
as soon as I turn that key, stamp my gas pedal.

Now to develop heart armour –


• Bernice Lever is a Canadian poet. If you check out our reviews section, there is a report on her latest collection
Never A Straight Line (ISBN: 978-0-88753-438-6). For more info visit www.colourofwords.com
View Article  Two works by Hannah Silva
talking to silence


cutting cutting cutting ctctctctctctctctctctctctctctct sickening how
dgd gdg dgd gdg dgd gdg dgd gdg dgd d d d d  d  d  d    d    doubt
doub ting t onges…doubt ing to…de co rate….this….speech.
sick-of-me  talk-ing-to  sick-of-me  talk-ing-to  sick-of-me  talk-ing-to…              
 
         silence…

risk…thinking sinking sickening kick towards speaking…doubtful…listening
look at me look at me look at me sick of me sick of me sick of me
tell her tell her tell how talking to talking to licking licking looking
looking sick of sick of…..swallowing….. dividing.
watch. how. this. di. vi. ded. sp. ace. Breeeathesss…. Se pa rates….

into you in to you into you too your

reflection is licking me spitting me out like an unwanted diary entry I have become graffiti. Engraved on the inside of this bottom lip. I spill my self slip.

I see this is reflection is this see I ee this is reeeo e I I ee this is refleco I I tion noit ref lect ee ct see I see…and …it… breaks….

tkktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktk What about my body in the middle?

Drown. Down. Own. Gone. Now. Someone...

I’m a dot now rotting over I! A blood cut in the memory clot! The other of self. Ish Ish Ish Ish! She is all fish down below. All fish down. I hook her, and fling back!

This is what I mean by dancing           join!    join!      join!
I am going to be to going am I            joy!      joy!       joy!  


I walk through the grass and hands my ankles grasp.
Underneath all the self-taking the love, it kisses, hard.



Dust


Here...a pearl-drop on the eyelash
It reflects a myriad of wounds   
Some travel with us
Which were we born with?

No one blink. No one let time pass without outcry.

Voices overlap, speech turns back on someone longing      
Voices overlap, it’s over; the television speaks. Voices

Overlap speech turns back on someone longing
Voices overlap, it’s over; the television speaks

Is the window open? I’m longing to repeat my mistakes    
Longing to repeat    to repeat   myself      Longing to

Repeat     to repeat myself
Is the window open? I’m longing to repeat my mistakes.

No one blink. No one let time pass without outcry.

We have woken into something. The midst, the mist of something.
                                                                                       
Choking dust        choking us.


• Hannah Silva is a playwright, poet and theatre director living in Devon. Her website is at www.hannahsilva.co.uk and she recently performed at the London Word Festival.
View Article  Rachel Fox reports on StAnza
Rachel Fox reports on the StAnza poetry festival which took place at St Andrews last weekend – StAnza  is the only regular festival dedicated to poetry in Scotland...

Unlike lots of poets and poetry folk I have to say I always approach StAnza with mixed feelings. I have had good experiences there - for example I went to a great workshop with Matt Harvey 2 years ago (and I am not normally a workshop kind of a person). He was really encouraging and helped me a lot in terms of confidence (he was probably the first person involved in poetry to say 'you're good, you should do this'). However I've also had some dire StAnza moments too. I tried the Masterclass a few years back and hated it (it was with Jane Hirshfield - she was fine but some of the participants...aagghh!) Plus I've sat through a lot of (for my taste) overly poetic outpourings about nature and nature and, oh yes, more nature - oh the droning voices, oh the overdeveloped imagery, oh the polite audience...

Last year I even tried the Slam as people kept telling me I'm a performance poet (which I don't think I am particularly... in fact I'm sure I've said at least a hundred times that I think the whole literary/performance split in poetry is a nonsense really... some of the supposedly great literary poets can perform well... some of the supposedly performance poets can be as literary as they come... if in a less 'look at the width of my phd' kind of a way). The Slam was OK, I didn't embarrass myself, but it let me know the Slamming thing is not for me... the hooter, the time limit, the juke box jury. Yuk.

Anyway... this year rather than a full weekend and a lot of family organising I just chose a couple of events on the Thursday. I got there early and tried to see the exhibition bits (hmm... so-so). I bumped into a few friendly faces, spent ages in Waterstones (we don't have big bookshops in Montrose), bought a Don Paterson book (I give in, he is a clever bastard... and funny... and miserable and oo, you are awful but I like you...), saw the poetry films on show in the Byre (fantastic - the Larkin one, the family values one...), ate lunch in quiet caff (just as well - no food at the lunchtime Studio Theatre show... again...)

The lunchtime show itself was great though (food or no food) featuring Raman Mundair (from Shetland, via Northern England, via India). She was one of those poets that's so full of life it's a joy to behold. She sang (beautifully), she smiled like she knew how to do it, she had a great range of material (for me the highpoints were the very sad poem about racist killings in London and the very exciting poem about dance and life and everything). I felt we should all dance off down the stairs at the end... but of course we didn't. This is St Andrews, dear, walk nicely and bow to the royalty.

I went on to the Past & Present next - largely I have to admit because I wanted to see Adrian Mitchell but didn't fancy the Sunday night reading (lots of reasons... too many to detail). It was a great event. Tom Leonard was amusingly droll and bitter (and like Don Paterson's...older brother? Uncle?) and Adrian Mitchell was just... delightful (how English that sounds). He was talking about Blake but most of all he was talking about life and joy and happiness. Like the simply delicious Michael Morpurgo (who I also saw at StAnza a few years back) he made you want him as a Dad, or an Uncle or a Grandad... how nice it must be to have men like that in a family... men with hope! I never knew my Grandads or uncles (or Dad of course) so I think about these things. That may not be a literary poet's take on the event but you can read that stuff elsewhere...I 'm always pleased to see good specimens of humankind and rejoice in their wondrousness!

So that was it for me. I went back off to the public transport system and family life, my mixings with the literary world over for another long while probably. I do like some writers but being around a lot of them for any length of time gives me a headache.

• A version of this also appears on Rachel's blog http://crowd-pleasers.blogspot.com/
View Article  Rachel Fox on why writers groups are not for everyone
Writers' groups are not for everyone


Writers' groups are not the place for everyone
Sitting in those shapes and clasping verse
A bit like self-help meetings (minus all the fun)
Instead of drugs and phobias it's far, far worse
There are lots of serious blokes who dream of softback
Who know exactly why their words are best
Ok, career is not exactly on track
But luckily there's nothing helps you toughen like a test
The women present criticise constructively
This is good and that is nearly so
Young and old have faces trained in empathy
But is spending time this way really the best way to go?
I tried, I tried, I open the door wide
And I go right back to the ungrouped world outside


• Rachel Fox was born and raised in Northern England and now lives on the Angus coast in Scotland. She says: "I have been writing poetry regularly for about ten years. I have worked in journalism, education, market research, shops and nightclubs (5 long years as a DJ in the 1990s). At present I look after family full-time – partly because I like it, partly because it gives me more writing time and partly because I am very bad at keeping regular jobs. I publish my poems as postcards and read regularly at the folk club in Montrose." More information can be found on her excellent website at www.crowd-pleasers.net and we will be carrying some more of her work in the next few weeks.
View Article  New haiga by Alexis Rotella



• Alexis Rotella is a regular contributor to IS&T. This photo was taken during her recent trip to Japan.
View Article  Portrait of Death as an Artist by P T Diep
A portrait of death as an artist



Light peels back the night from faces
with prayers engraved on chiselled lips

the mist of souls is teased towards the sky
by the sun that lifts the veil to peep

at death upon the ground
already calling those bodies down

the bodies of boys buried neck deep
in metal tombs no longer draped in laughs.

The water-colours of yesterday have dried,
like oil, becoming water-fast.

So time scrapes the scene and scrapes the scene
until all flesh is gone and bones are stones

that mark the beds of boys that overnight
joined their forefathers in the grave.

The tombs crumble into remnants,
overrun by the forest's creep.

Green crystals encrust copper,
swords and helmets lie exposed.

Earth draws the greens back down,
reds and golds blur the setting sun.

Black night tumbles from the sky,
pierced by time's perfect aim.


• Phuoc-Tan (PT) Diep is a regular contributor to IS&T. This poem first appeared in Poetry News.
View Article  10 ways of seeing the Moon by Barry Tench
10 Ways of Seeing The Moon


big biscuit moon

a floodlight over the empty docks

in a morning mist, it keeps hanging

now I see you, now I see don’t

as you drop from the balcony
to a boy with brown hair

wizardry on a chalkboard
a reminder to buy some cheese

the trapeze artist spots a place
to hang her face

in a courtyard a bucket
lies on its side reflecting the moon
as a stoat stops, unseen

one night by a lake
Mary has a vengeful monster to create

and a day selling big issues is punctuated by the moon.


• Barry Tench is a student on the Creative & Life Writing course at Goldsmiths College, London. He has been writing and teaching creative writing in schools and youth centres for 10 years and his work has been published in variety of local and national magazines

View Article  Two poems by Christopher Mulrooney
the price of admission
 

you kick the sign in your forehead
with your own left foot
it isn't a guarantee by any means
something about your grace when doing so
must win the heart of the machine
 

 
shop 'til you drop
 

I. Brokeback Market
 
you check your guns at the door
the lonesome cowboys on the soundtrack
watch your every move
with rustling eyes
 
 
II. HQ Super
 
this is the peaceable kingdom
swans and geese are for sale
pigeons and sweetmeats
fans and automobiles and diapers
 
 
III. meat market
 
the lonely matador leaves his ring
for security at the carneceria
you can fight it at four
and have it on the table by seven


• Christopher Mulrooney lives in Los Angeles and has written poems in White Chimney, The Delinquent, Vanitas, Guernica, echolocation and fourW.
View Article  Broken Voices - Paddy Trrant's book reviewed by Sarah Bower
BROKEN VOICES

Broken Things by Padrika Tarrant
Reviewed by Sarah Bower

Padrika Tarrant is a familiar face to regulars at Norwich’s Cafe Writers evenings. I almost wrote, a familiar voice, but that would have been misleading. Because, as this first collection of stories proves, there is nothing familiar about her voice at all.

Tarrant’s fictional world exists somewhere just under the skin of the quotidian ‘every day’ world, in a space of which most of us are unaware most of the time and are thankful for it. On one level, her writing is firmly grounded in place; particular cities and even the streets in them are often mentioned by name, though Tarrant does not have to make explicit references for us to know where we are – in sad bedsits and bleak council flats, in charismatic churches where fear of the devil holds greater sway than the love of god, on late night buses and empty underpasses and streets where dead dogs lie in gutters and dead souls pass unnoticed.

Yet Tarrant does not see these places with the same eyes as we do. Her storytelling strips away the mundane to reveal, with scalpel-like precision and great compassion, what lies beneath. In stories such as Darling and Coffinwood, the dead are not gone, but merely waiting to reveal themselves to those who take time to care for them, to inflate their lungs with old carrier bags or coax their shy presences with saucers of milk. In Gas we are confronted by the mundane and catastrophic consequences of being turned upon by what we believe we have tamed. It is one of our conceits as the only species possessed of self-awareness to personify the inanimate, and Tarrant is not afraid to take this to its logical and chilling conclusion, to show us just where our arrogance will get us.

Broken Things is a very fine collection indeed, funny, terrifying and provocative. Padrika Tarrant’s imagination is not a comfortable place to be, but it is darkly addictive, like a switchback ride or an hallucinogenic fix, and you will come away from it changed. These are simply some of the best short stories I have ever read.

Broken Things is published by Salt at £12.99 (Hardback, ISBN: 978-1-84471-343-1)


• Sarah Bower is a novelist, short story writer and teacher of creative writing. She was the winner of the 2005 Cafe Writers Short Fiction Award. Her first novel, The Needle in the Blood, was published by Snowbooks in 2007 and was Susan Hill’s Novel of the Year 2007. Her second, The Book of Love, comes out in April 2008.

View Article  New poetry by Will Collins
Ehs View


wit eh luvs aboot bein mental iz thi freedom ay speech
wit eh hates aboot bein mental iz thi way thi wordz git stuk
wit eh luvs aboot thi condition iz thi income support muni
wit eh hates aboot thi condition iz thi eighty quid a week budgit
wit eh luvs aboot thi life iz thi free hoose
wit eh hates aboot thi life iz thi shite location
wit eh luvs aboot thi pills iz they chill im right oot
wit eh hates aboot thi pills iz they make im fat
wit eh luvs aboot it iz no workin
wit eh hates aboot it iz gettin bored
wit eh luvs aboot it iz eh lives in ehs ain wee bubble
wit eh hates aboot it iz ehs cut oaf fae thi world
wit eh luvs aboot it is thi fresh perspective
wit eh hates aboot it iz naebody else kin see it
wit eh luvs aboot it iz thi voices keep ehm compni
wit eh hates aboot it iz thi voices tell ehm whit tae dae
wit eh luvs aboot it iz thi attention eh gets
wit eh hates aboot it iz thi sections they slap on ehm
wit eh luvs aboot it iz thi fact its no cancer
wit eh hates aboot it iz thi suicide attempts
wit eh luvs aboot it iz thi up up ups
wit eh hates aboot it iz thi doon doon doons
wit eh luvs aboot it iz thi intensiti
wit eh hates aboot it iz thi flatness
wit eh luvs aboot it iz thi frogs in thi hallway
wit eh hates aboot it iz theyre no real
wit eh luvs aboot it aiwiz huz a dark n selfish tinge


• Will Collins is studying creative writing at the University of Winchester and says he has written this piece in a strong Glaswgian accent to give it a city feel.

View Article  Two prose poems by Katrina Naomi
How to Make Lasagne


First, assemble your ingredients. Be sure that all are fresh and the best quality that you can afford.

Second, go for a walk. Stroll to the pine forest at the top of the lane. Stay for 30 minutes. Lay down, shut your eyes. 25 minutes. Then, when you are ready, open your eyes, watch clouds separate through the branches. 5 minutes

Third, pick out four images that you wish to use. Slowly retrace your steps.

Fourth, return to the kitchen. Layer your thoughts.

Fifth, put the dish in the oven. Gas mark 5. 30 minutes




A Lesson About Spiders, for Traditionalists


Don’t pull out their legs, whether one by one or two by two.

Don’t tread on, squash or thwack them.

Don’t dissect or bisect the spider, that one in the hall, that larger one under the sink.

I’m telling you this because I know something about spiders that you don’t – about spiders and about many things.

Should you ignore this teaching, you will have the blood of kings, the blood of queens, the blood of the Empire on your hands – for a spider’s blood turns blue at the point of death.


• Katrina Naomi is studying for a Creative Writing MA at Goldsmiths.
View Article  Two poems by Julia Webb
Camping
 
If I could snuff out the world
I would,
if I could chase away
the what once was,
if I could glance at a mirror
and catch a glimpse