Poetry Worth Hearing: Episode 34

kathleenmcphilemy8
Jun 26
9 min read

This is the 34th episode of Poetry Worth Hearing and the last before the summer. It opens with an interview from Theophilus Kwek, whose newest collection, Commonwealth, has just been published by Carcanet. In addition, we have an exciting group of poems on the theme of 'borders', including a couple of poems about Palestine by Jane Duran which she very kindly agreed to record for this episode. I am also delighted to have a poem especially written for this episode from Jessica Mookherjee. Other poets include Helen Overell, Lizzie Ballagher, Isabela Basombrio Hoban, Paul Walton, Jane Thomas, Gwyn Carney, Marco Giudici and John White.

Theophilus Kwek has published five full-length collections, including Moving House (2020) and now, Commonwealth from Carcanet. He has been shortlisted twice for the Siongapore Literature Prize, and his pamphlet, The First Five Storms (ignitionpress, 2017) won the inaugural New Poets' Prize. In 2023 he was the youngest writer and first Singaporean to be awarded the Cikada Prize by the Swedish Institute, for poetry that 'defends the inviolability of life' is part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2024

Jess Mookherjee

Jessica Mookherjee is a British poet of Bengali heritage and grew up in Wales and London, now lives in Kent. She has been published in many print and online journals and anthologies and was twice highly commended for best single poem in the Forward Prize 2017 and 2021. Author of 3 full collections from Nine Arches Press, Flood, her second collection Tigress (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Ledbury Prize in 2021, and Notes from a Shipwreck (Nine Arches Press 2022). She also has two pamphlets with Broken Sleep Books; Playlists and Desire Lines (Broken Sleep Books 2023).

Helen Overell

Embroidered panel — mid 1950's

for Pat

The panel unrolls — pieced pilgrims in muted

tones, appliquéd, embroidered by hand — strettle

stitch on this tunic, infill of double herringbone

on that over-garment, and look, here is an ox —

the coat in bold coral knots — and a woman

seated on a donkey, holding a child, swaddled,

who looks out on the world, and the rust-red

shadow of a cross in faded crottle-dyed blocks;

all robed with ply of needle on woven cloth,

eyes, large, in sketched faces outlined in finest

machine thread, tell of crossing borders, fleeing

from danger, seeking shelter, of weary footfall,

belongings in a bundle — the story, re-told

through millennia, threaded through all of time.

Helen Overell has work in several magazines and some of her poems were highly commended or placed in competitions including the Poetry Society Stanza Competition 2018 and the Poetry News Members' poems Summer 2020. Her first collection, Inscapes &Horizons, was published by St Albert's Press in 2008 and her second collection,

Thumbprints, was published by Oversteps in 2015. A booklet of her poems,

Measures for lute, was published by The Lute Society in 2020. She takes an active role

in Mole Valley Poets, a Poetry Society Stanza group.

Lizzie Ballagher

an elm’s age

leaf trove lying long in peat

bears still in rust-scratched veins

in the fine quill

of its straightest stalk

the signature of sun risings,

settings, ten millennia ago;

the ink of chlorophyll grown green

before fields & farms—

perhaps before man

had ever planted grain:

leaf trove…love letters

printed in the press of peat,

templates for another, slower time

an elm’s age away:

leaves thin as the border

between then and now

between earth’s life

and loss

at words’ end

holding its breath

till it turns blue

then ultramarine

the sky drops day

lets blackbirds’ liquid song

fall silent

under the first bat’s

flickering

lets light go

from indigo

to purple

with a slow sighing

ruffling,

rippling my hair

my standing on end

on the back of my neck

and heavy hair—

dissolving day—

unmooring me

on the edge of day

between day & darkness

between light & the drawing down

of night’s black blind

on that narrow margin

where water meets soil,

green & growing things that reach

deep into clay

for sustenance

here the sky clarifies, lifts back,

mist dispersing

as low light dyes the icy river

to rose-water

where neither the reeds’ faint hiss

nor the fall of a willow

into the shallows

will stop us following

the long, low bank

going east & ever farther east

until another sunrise—

and the dreaming sea

Wildwoods

Sheep country, someone said

before we left

the house above the bay

to walk the coast-path

on a gritty day

that should have been April

but was wintry, grey:

wind bleating over walls

at every turn.

Rounding a blind bend

on the headland,

behind us rainbows

leaping over eastern heaths

gleefully as lambs in fields,

we were canopied, suddenly,

by oak-woods, beech-boughs—

wet trees flocking landward

under the drive of drizzle:

branches looped with lichen

thick as sheep’s wool

in wire—but pallid green,

shedding shawls

& fleeces that flapped

in the westerly: dimmed light

flickering between

in ghosts & gusts, in lobes

of epiphytes, moss stars….

Woody Bay: rainforest

abandoned by the ages—

ancient reliquary on western edges:

decked with pennywort—

with succulents’ green coins—

with hart’s-tongue ferns…

a coastal fringe as fine

and soft along the cliffs

as sheared merino.

Lizzie Ballagher's focus is on landscapes, both interior and exterior; also, on the beauty (and hostility) of the environment. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poetry has appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/

Isabela Basombrío Hoban

ABOVE CLOUDS

Trees reaching above clouds

Clouds reaching beneath

Orange trees in bloom

Walking by those fruits of good fortune

That hang heavy

And drop on the plaza

Witnessed by a dove

Fluttering in suspension

High above

From the terrace

A view

Of mountains oblivious to

Sunsets orange like oranges

While on the patio and dreaming of the desert

A tall thin-skinned green cactus

Lives in a pot

A strange and gentle creature

Isabela Basombrío Hoban is an award-winning poet and a multidisciplinary artist. Originally from Peru and living in Ireland, she is a bilingual poet writing in English and Spanish. Her recent books are "Nothing belongs to everyone" (Nada pertenece a todos), "Rain Love Death Poets" (Lluvia Amor Muerte Poetas) and “Another type of abbreviation” (Otro tipo de abreviatura 2024), all published by Ediciones Vitruvio. Her publishing houses are Ediciones Vitruvio in Madrid, Spain and Salmon Poetry in Ennistymon, Ireland. Isabela is the recipient of the 2023 Premio Nuevo Ateneo Online (New Athenaeum Online Award). The New Athenaeum Online Award recognizes the work of authors who have written an important work of great literary value and who strive to contribute to new forms of cultural diffusion to reach the reading public. The jury is composed of authors of recognized prestige. Isabela was a fellow with the "Next Generation Leadership Project" of the Rockefeller Foundation and has received awards for her poetry from the Mayo County Council Arts Section and Culture Ireland.

Paul Walton

Elegy in Photographs

We went outside

in the

sun.

Your banter had

me on the

run.

As you shot -

I quite forgot

all my best

rules

to look cool.

I caught your

face on my

screen -

A face in

a place we’ve

been.

But your look

all focus

took

with thoughts of

what might have

been.

I read your

news in my

feed.

Such news you

don’t choose to

read.

Battles lost

and boundaries

crossed

It seems death

breeds rhymes and

dreams.

www.flotandjet.com

Paul Christopher Walton

Born in Staffordshire, Paul read History at Brasenose College, Oxford, wrote Bluff Your Way in Marketing and helped unleash Quorn upon an unsuspecting world. In retirement, Paul combines two of his passions as The Brand Historian, guest lectures for the Oxford English Faculty, creates poetry anthologies (the latest, on the Côte d’Azur, has just been published) and can often be found on the Croisette in Cannes with his flute.

Jane Thomas

My Father in his Coracle : Drift

At the edge of the river Styx

a frayed rope

ravels away like a cream eel

unclutched

coracle adrift

heading to where blue herons sleep

rift wing bats drink-dive

and unbodied moths test their wings

and thither in to the light

oarless

clipped silver under tongue

you follow

dawn threads

of apple mist

and wild thyme

weight gone

drifting into

willow

white

space

Jane Thomas has been highly commended in competitions including; The Bridport, Fish, Hippocrates, and Rialto. Her work has been published recently in Stand, Mslexia, and The Oxford Review of Books. She is currently completing a poetry collection on the theme of Alzheimer’s.

Gwyn Carney

Out in the Styx

The old timbers grumbled

as she drove over the

wooden bridge

to visit the care home

on the other side

She waited...

cheap carpets, talc, Mint Imperials

stale urine

a new face approached

-Are you the doctor?

Only for the last thirty years

-Who have you come to see?

Don't you know? Didn't you call me?

-Room four is a cough

-Room nine wandering

-Room fourteen a rash

No names

Over the years she had tried

encouragement and compliments

cajoling and suggestions

but the TV blared

and drowned out all thought

Remembering Orpheus,

she had asked for music

and tried to transfer a patient

out but there were

objections

paperwork

funding problems

There is another way

she thought

There is a better place

Note from Gwyn Carney: I work as a GP and write in my spare time. This poem is about the border between life and death. I wrote it a few years ago and the Care home that inspired it (if that is the right word, conspired to create it might be better) completely changed during covid. The staff, of their own volition, decided to live in the home for 6 weeks at a time during the lockdowns, and got to know their residents so much more deeply and really cared for them. So there is hope!

Jane Duran

These poems are taken from the most recent issue of Painted, Spoken, edited by Richard Price. www.paintedspoken.com which if you are quick you can obtain for free if you send an A5 SAE to the editor. They are part of a set of poems on Palestine which Jane is currently working on.

Jane Duran was born in Cuba and raised in the USA and Chile. Enitharmon Press published five collections of her poetry, including Breathe Now, Breathe (1995) which won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her most recent book, the clarity of distant things, was published by Carcanet in 2021. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2005.

Marco Giudici

US vs THEM

Contrails are cuts

in the sky

on my arms

cuts to welfare

this is warfare

us versus them

we drive past their

sandstone homes

this is unfair

you say as fumes

reclaim the air

this is warfare

us versus them

the hedges are high

so are the stakes

and wind turbine blades

severe your sky

this is warfare

us versus them

piccola mia

you must persevere

Marco Giudici is a British-Italian poet based in North Wales, who has adopted English as his main "lingua poetica". Marco's poems explore socially and politically charged themes such as social dislocation, inequality, migration and climate change. Marco will read some of his poems at the upcoming Spoken Word event at Llangollen Fringe Festival on 14 July. Some of his previous poems in Italian were shortlisted at national poetry awards including Premio Tirinnanzi and Lericipea. Marco obtained a PhD in History from Bangor University and currently works as a freelance writer, volunteers at a community garden and is also a passionate singer songwriter.

John White

Donnybrewer

Two would be left, ‘Mousey’ and ‘Ginger’,

the ‘Johns’ they separated by our hair.

His garden backed on to the airfield

where the ball we lamped was scarred

and pocked and put on weight with water

so you shrank from its woozy flight

or ‘threw your head at it’ with eyes shut,

smudged and retted, until the light

drained off or the siren went

for the shift change up at Dupont.

And a change, in time, in the townland:

I’d find a route to ‘Grammar’, he

‘the Modern’, neither one would stay

to see it an extension of the runway.

John White was born and raised in County Derry. He lives near Oxford, where he works in a special needs school, and completed the Oxford Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, gaining a distinction. His poems have been commended in major competitions, including the Ginkgo Prize for Eco poetry, and published widely, including The North, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry News, Poetry Wales, and Oxford Poets 2007 (Carcanet).Winner of the iOTA Shot Pamphlet Award 2023. Attachments

That's all for this episode, which you will find online at https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/kathleen-mcphilemy/episodes/Poetry-Worth-Hearing-Episode-34-e34nakt. You can also find it on Audible and You Tube podcasts. Please listen and share. The next episode is due in late September and prompts will be posted, probably next week, here, on Facebook and through email. If you would like to be added to the PWH email list you can fill in a contact form here, or email me at poetryworthhearing.com. Comments and suggestions can be made in the same way. I hope you enjoy this episode and that you have a good summer.