Welcome to Episode 8 of Poetry Worth Hearing, back after a summer break. This episode is slightly different in that it is devoted largely to one poet, Dinah Livingstone. There is an extended interview with her where she talks about her influences and themes and reads from her own work and that of other poets she cares about. The interview is followed by a shorter than usual open section featuring poems by Andrew Dixon, Lizzie Ballagher, Stephen Wren and Alice Willington. The texts and information about the poets will be found below.
I first met Dinah Livingstone just after I finished my Ph.D thesis and was looking for something to do. I joined her Camden Voices class at the Camden Institute, which was part of the ILEA. I knew of Dinah as a poet through various little magazines, but I quickly came to appreciate her skill as a teacher, or facilitator, as she prefers to put it. We were a very mixed and constantly changing group of would-be poets but many of the group went on to become established writers and sometimes poetry 'teachers' themselves, perhaps, notably, Mimi Khalvati who founded the Poetry School. Dinah did not set us tasks or make us practise forms, although form was often discussed and I remember one long-running debate about sonnets. What she excelled at was sifting the wheat from the chaff, identifying where poems worked and where they did not and she managed to do this without upsetting the delicate sensibilities of her students, even though she was capable of being extremely forthright in her opinions.
I also came to know Dinah as a publisher. She enabled my first pamphlet, which was published through Camden Voices. Later, she published two of my collections through her own press, Katabasis. Dinah has, for the most part, been self-published, a choice which has let her control the production of her books and allowed her to branch out into publishing the work of others, usually with the support of Arts Council grants, now rarely available. The wide range of her publications can be seen on the Katabasis website, link given below.
As well as publishing poetry, Dinah has also published several volumes of prose, discussing her views of poetry and theology. These works are an intrinsic part of her output, which has remained consistent and coherent from the outset, founded on her interest in religion, her early training in theology and her persistent engagement with politics, from Greenham Common, to the Sandinistan revolutionaries in Nicaragua to the Occupy movement which briefly set up camp next to St Paul's Cathedral. However, despite her commitment, Dinah has never been a joiner, and has preserved her authentic, sometimes lonely, voice throughout her long career. At the same time, she has retained a generous openness to poets and poetic voices very different from her own, placing quality ahead of dogma. There are many other aspects of her work which could be mentioned: her editorship of the magazine, Sofia, originally just the organ of the Sea of Faith Network which developed out of the writings of Don Cupitt, but which has become, under her guidance, an admirable literary/theological/philosophical periodical which may be niche, but is very accessible. She has also worked all her life as a translator, partly to earn her bread, but also for love, as in her many translations of South American poetry.
Lists of her publications are given below together with a short biography. I hope this episode of Poetry Worth Hearing will mark my appreciation, and that of many others, of this remarkable poet.
Dinah Livingstone had a rural childhood in the West of England and has lived in the same house in Camden Town, London, since 1966. She has published in magazines and anthologies, four prose books and ten collections of her poetry, the most recent being Embodiment (2019). She ran the Camden Voices Poetry Group from 1978-98. She is a translator from French, Spanish, German and Italian, runs the small press Katabasis and edits the magazine Sofia. She has three children and two grandsons. |
Publications
POETRY BOOKS: Embodiment (2019) The Vision Splendid (2014) Poems of Hampstead Heath and Regent's Park (2012) Kindness (2007) Presence (2003) Time on Earth: Selected and New Poems (Rockingham Press 1999) May Day (1997) Second Sight (1993) Keeping Heart (1989) Saving Grace (Rivelin Grapheme 1987)
POETRY PAMPHLETS: St Pancras Wells (Hearing Eye 1991) Something Understood (1985) Glad Rags (1983) Love in Time (1982) Prepositions and Conjunctions (1977) Ultrasound (1974) Maranatha (1969) Tohu Bohu (1968) Beginning (1967)
PROSE:
The Making of Humanity: Poetic Vision and Kindness (2017)
Poetic Tales (2010)
The Poetry of Earth (2000)
Poetry Handbook for Readers and Writers (Macmillan 1992)
EDITED: This Life on Earth (prose and poetry, SOF Network 2009) Work: An Anthology (prose and poetry, 1999) Camden Voices Anthology 1978-1990 (poetry, 1990)
Her translations (from Spanish, French, Italian and German) include:
POETRY:
Tongues of Fire by Alfredo Cordal (ed. and part trans., Katabasis 2011); Nicaraguan Peasant Mass (Misa campesina), by Carlos Mejía Godoy (3rd revised edition with a new introduction by DL: Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, London 2007); Mother Tongues Anthology (part: translated new poems by Roberto Rivera-Reyes and María Eugenia Bravo, Modern Poetry in Translation, London 2001); Nosotras: Poems by Nicaraguan Women, (Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, London 1999); Life for Each, by Daisy Zamora (Katabasis, 1994); Poets of the Nicaraguan Revolution (ed. and trans., Katabasis, 1993); Prayer in the National Stadium, by María Eugenia Bravo Calderara (Katabasis, 1992); The Music of the Spheres, by Ernesto Cardenal (Katabasis, 1990); The Nicaraguan Epic, by Carlos & Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy and Julio Valle-Castillo (Katabasis, 1989); Dawn Hunters and other Poems, by Roberto Rivera-Reyes (part: LA Writers, London 1989); Anthology of Latin American Poets in London, (part: LA Writers, London 1988); Nicaraguan New Time, by Ernesto Cardenal (Journeyman, 1988); Nicaraguan Peasant Mass by Carlos Mejía Godoy (songs: Catholic Institute for International Relations, London 1986); Poems, by F. García Lorca and John of the Cross (Katabasis, 1969).
PROSE:
Benedict XVI - A Life. Volume II: Professor and Prefect to Pope and Pope Emeritus by Peter Seewald (Bloomsbury, London 2021); Benedict XVI - A Life. Volume I: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council by Peter Seewald (Bloomsbury, London 2020); The Following of Jesus: A Reply to the Imitation of Christ by Leonardo Boff (Orbis, New York 2019); To the Margins: Pope Francis and the Mission of the Church by Andrea Riccardi (Orbis, New York 2018); I have Learned from the Least by Luis Antonio Tagle (Orbis, New York 2017); The Church Cannot Remain Silent by Oscar Romero (part:. Orbis, New York 2016); Morning Homilies III by Pope Francis (Orbis, New York 2016); Morning Homilies II by Pope Francis (Orbis, New York 2016); Morning Homilies I by Pope Francis (Oribis, New York 2015); Francis of Rome and Francis of Assisi by Leonardo Boff (Orbis, New York 2014) The God of Jesus Christ by Walter Kasper, trans. new Introduction (T. and T. Clark, London 2012); Jesus the Christ by Walter Kasper, trans. new Introduction (T & T Clark, London 2011); Love, Imperfectly Known by Brother Emmanuel of Taizé (Continuum, London 2011); The Eye of the Needle by Jon Sobrino (Darton, Longman and Todd, London 2008); By being It Is, The Thesis of Parmenides, by Nestor Luis Cordero (Parmenides Publishing,Las Vegas, distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2004); Zapatista Stories,by Subcomandante Marcos (Katabasis, 2001); We Will Not Dance on our Grandparents’ Tombs: Indigenous Uprisings in Ecuador, by Kintto Lucas (CIIR, London 2000); Angels of Grace,by Anselm Grün (Search Press, London 1999); Carlos, Now the Dawn’s No Fond Illusion,by Tomás Borge (Katabasis, 1996); Santo Domingo and After, by Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jon Sobrino and others (part: CIIR,1993); Our Cry for Life: A Feminist View of Liberation Theology, by Maria Pilar Aquino (Orbis Books, New York 1993); Systematic Theology, Perspectives from Liberation Theology ed. Ignacio. Ellacuria & Jon Sobrino (part: Orbis Books, New York 1993); Mysterium Liberationis: A Dictionary of Liberation Theology ed. Ignacio Ellacuria & Jon Sobrino (part: Orbis Books, New York 1993); Led by Hope by Luis Alonso Schökel (St Paul’s Publications, Slough 1991); In the Autumn of Life by Luis Alonso Schökel (St Paul’s Publications, Slough 1991); Moses, by Luis Alonso Schökel (St Pauls Publications, Slough 1990); Companions of Jesus. The Murder and Martyrdom of the Salvadorean Jesuits, by Jon Sobrino (CIIR, 1990); Martyrdom in El Salvador (Church in the World pamphlet 27, 1989); The Future of Liberation Theology. Essays in Honour of Gustavo Gutiérrez (part: Orbis Books, New York 1989); Death and Life in Morazán by María López Vigil (CIIR, London 1989); Eight Day Retreat with St Ignatius of Loyola by Norbert Alcover (St Paul’s Publications, Slough 1989); The Crucified Peoples, by Jon Sobrino (CIIR, London 1989); In the Thick of his Ministry by Carlo-Maria Martini (St Paul’s Publications, Slough 1989); We are like Dreamers by Walter Beyerlin (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh 1982); The Living God by René Voillaume (Darton, Longmand and Todd, London 1980); Jesus of Gramoven, by A. Pérez Esclarín (novel: Orbis Books, New York 1978); The Liturgy Today and Tomorrow by Joseph Gelineau (Darton, Longman and Todd, London 1978); This Day is Ours by J. Leclercq (SPCK, London 1976); Simplicity, by G. Lefebvre (Darton, Longman and Todd, London 1975); Source of Life by René Voillaume (Darton, Longman and Todd, London 1975); Love by Ernesto Cardenal (Search Press, London 1974); The Desert is Fertile, by Helder Camara (Orbis Books, New York 1974); Courage to Pray by Anthony Bloom and Georges LeFebvre (Darton, Longman and Todd, London 1973); The Tupamaros, by Alain Labrousse (Penguin, London 1973); The Poor Sinner’s Gospel, by Wilhelm Weitling (Sheed and Ward, London 1969); The Truth is Concrete, by Dorothee Sölle (Burns and Oates, London 1969); In the Kingdom of Mescal, by Georg Schäfer (Macdonald, London 1969); Nature and Grace,by Karl Rahner (Sheed and Ward, London 1963).
MISCELLANEOUS AND HOW TO BOOKS:
The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna by Manfred Leithe-Jasper and Rudolf Distelberger (Scala Books, London 1998); Cooking with Coffee,by Lucas Rosenblatt et. al. (New Internationalist, Oxford 2002); 22 illustrated cookbooks, plus other works for the agency Translate-a-Book, Oxford; How to make Ceramic Character Dolls, by Sylvia Becker (Search Press, Tunbridge Wells, 1992);. How to Spot your Child’s Potential, by C. Drouin & Alain Dubois (Sheldon Press, London 1989); How to Get Pregnant and How Not to by C. Dolto, A.. Schiffmann & P. Bello (Sheldon Press, 1985).
Here is the link to the Katabasis website: https://www.katabasis.co.uk/
Texts of Dinah's poems from the interview:
Nature and Grace
The book comes in the post,
my first published translation,
Karl Rahner’s Nature and Grace.
I was paid £70.
Pregnant with my first child
I went straight out to buy an early
fully automatic washing machine
for the muslin and terry towelling
and the mountains of the rest.
My husband was angry:
‘You should have consulted me,’
he said, ‘it’s our money.’
I replied: ‘It’s our washing.’
He looked bewildered,
the idea had not occurred.
We liked theology and discussed
whether technology
doesn’t destroy nature but perfects it.
Would he have preferred
a wife stooped over the sink?
Appliances, I maintain, are an asset.
What is a gift and cannot be bought
is the moment of grace
when after all your sweat
the printed book arrives and the
publisher praises your translation.
That can’t be done by machine.
Or you write what you didn’t expect
and it is beyond prose – a poem.
And when, at last, your living child is born,
you see his face and the midwife
gives you him to hold,
himself and snuffling in your arms.
Keeping Faith
1
‘You do not have the faith, you are not saved.
We know the truth and you are in the dark.’
Insistently dogmatic, they believed
they had exclusive entry to the park.
The park was paradise, not in this world.
The locked-out doubters fled that attitude
which says: ‘You’re wrong, we’re right, we’ve got it nailed.’
No wonder faith’s become a dodgy word.
Hijacked by dogma, must faith then be lost?
So are you faithless if you be yourself,
believe in life on Earth and humankind?
Aren’t faith and hope and love a constant quest
to fumble through and struggle to fulfil,
embody an idea you have in mind?
2 Two Women
‘Myself is someone I have never known,’
my friend tells me, ‘I don’t know who I am.
I fear there’s no one there when I’m alone.
I play the roles but never can become.’
There is no self: it’s an illusion,
postmodernist philosophers declare,
you’re up-to-date in your confusion.
But she laments: ‘It drives me to despair.’
‘I’ve always known I’m me since I was five,’
I answer her, ‘is that just selfishness,
a stubborn arrogance I should abhor?’
‘No, it’s your good luck, keeps you alive.
Self-seeking is the curse of selflessness
but you speak for yourself. At least, that’s more.’
3
I’ve lost belief in supernatural beings,
I can no longer find them credible
but urgent still that gospel’s old foreseeings
of this world changed so life and love prevail,
with God belonging to humanity
and born on Earth, come down to home with us;
the glory and the fullness are to be
when all enjoy themselves and live in peace.
I knew that I was me when I was five,
I’m grown up now and not a little girl,
but still myself, though I don’t look the same.
Can’t faith in the divine vision also thrive
now grown into a mature poetic tale
becoming what was in it all the time?
Likeness in Difference
In Regent’s Park I hear the roar
from the football field.
In whatever language,
the roaring sounds the same.
Round St Martin’s Gardens
a mother walks with her two little ones
and speaks a language I don’t know.
Could it be Bulgarian?
But I do understand what she means
when she calls one back who has gone too far
or picks up the other who falls,
and comforts him, just as a mother
in English would call and console.
Translating that German book
was difficult. Huge compound words,
interminable sentences whose clauses
in unfamiliar order interwove.
Verbatim it would sound ridiculous
to us. I laboured to sort it out,
untangle it like garden wire or wool
with a will of its own. Sometimes I needed
at least three new full stops. A few days later,
re-reading what I’d done, I was surprised
the English sounded ordinary,
a normal procedure,
which is the same and not the same.
Yet actually I am glad
German is so German
and French so French,
that each language is so much itself
but using it is the same activity.
As Wordsworth says,
there is a peculiar pleasure
from likeness in dissimilitude.
In my garden I enjoy herb robert,
periwinkle, philadelphus, fuchsia, rose,
all flowering. Goldfinch,
blue tit, great tit, robin, wren
come to my balcony, all being birds.
Just ordinary living can be difficult
but here we are, doing our best
in London’s 300 languages.
In imagination that translates
into the city achieved and splendid
where Pancras and Kentish Town repose,
the hungry are fed, distressed are comforted,
all different kinds of humanity thrive,
each enjoying, enriching each other
and all share the common good.
Burning Bush
The fuchsia in my back garden is a sturdy shrub.
It keeps on growing.
This summer again and again
it thrust out more red flowers
with purple centres, delicate
and dangling for the bee.
Deep yellow and supported
through its spreading branches
nasturtiums tangle as they climb.
Like the burning bush
that spoke to Moses in the desert
a flaming miracle, it proclaims I AM.
My fuchsia is speechless
but I feel it and become its voice:
I AM, I say for it and for myself.
Should that be we are?
Yes and one divine I AM,
the living energy for each to be
and thrust and rest to do our job.
Naturally
I love this garden but am grieved
when some who praise nature feel
they must immediately contrast it
with a gleeful loathing of humanity.
They wallow in the wrongs that we have done –
which indeed we have – but disregard the rest,
the kindness and imagination.
I walk through the park
where a mass of alkanet, madonna blue,
mingles with pink campion
and cow parsley in glorious array.
In the playground I see the children,
black and white and pink and brown,
with mothers and fathers chatting,
exchanging worries and stories.
Each keeps an eye on them playing,
ready to help or intervene.
One encourages a timid boy to climb:
‘Put your foot there. Hang on! Yes, that’s right!’
Another tells her girl who barges in:
‘No, we must wait our turn.
We share. The swing’s for everybody.’
With routine toil and tender care
day after day forming small citizens.
Love is builder of cities.
We fall in love and may create new life.
We cook and feed a family and guests.
All kinds of loving,
maybe ecstatic or just ordinary,
strong, persistent, unrecorded,
goes on everywhere, all the time.
Naturally.
We are Londoners and I remember
moments in London’s history.
1936. The Battle of Cable Street
when Catholic Irish dockers
and many more Eastenders
joined their Jewish neighbours
to stop the fascists marching through.
No pasarán! they shouted
in solidarity with Spain.
No need to translate the words
just the action. And how that watchword
echoed in revolutionary Nicaragua
in a famous poem which thousands sang:
‘Even though we may not be together,
love, I promise:
No, they shall not pass!’
Although defeat and failure
come repeatedly, so do kindness
and poetic vision. The struggle continues
for the shining garden city
where everyone can flower.
Mortal fellow creatures of the Earth,
still is the human form divine
and humankind is part of nature
not its enemy.
Birdsong at Midnight
In the depths of winter
I woke at midnight,
not to screeching foxes,
but the birds were singing –
were they blackbirds, robins?
Usually my street, minutes
from hectic Camden tube,
is quiet, but sometimes late
and mostly at weekends
I hear disturbing shouts and slams.
Or just soft voices murmuring,
maybe a couple wandered off
from the World’s End to be alone.
The robin figurine
beside my red tin postbox
disappeared. I like to think
it was given as a love token
between the two. I wish them well.
Tonight at Christmas time
still the birds are singing
like angels gloriously,
even though it is dark
and love is difficult
and so is peace on Earth.
Sleep Sealed
My daughter gave me a black satin nightgown
for Christmas. I call it my seal suit.
If my grandsons are being a bit annoying
I smile and threaten revenge:
I will turn up wearing it at their school
and excruciate them with embarrassment.
But my seal suit is really for bed.
It is lovely and slippery.
If I can’t sleep and am fretting
I imagine I am a seal on a sunny beach
with a gentle breeze. I slither about
until I get comfortable and bask.
Then I play in the sea for a while.
When I begin to grow tired
I sink down to rest and give in.
I am becoming an island,
a solid body of land
with rocky outlying arms and legs.
I am part of the map of the Earth
and might stay like that forever.
But up till now I have woken
to another morning
and sometimes that waking moment
is when a new thought becomes clear.
Open Section
Andrew Dixon
Shadows
Surely you’ll remember
how it was when you were young,
going out into the sunshine,
holding hands with Dad or Mum
Surely you’ll remember
how your shadow tracked you down,
sometimes disappearing,
knowing where you’d next be found.
And how your shadow lengthened,
as the sun set off for home.
How it cheered you, being little,
that the sun could make you long.
But most of all remember
those first steps out alone
your parents stood behind you
and your shadow all your own.
The Loch Ness Monster’s Lullaby*
Hush
Sleep little one
Sleep in the ocean of your dreams
Dream in the ocean that was once our own
Before the age of endless ice
Before the continents grew old
The ocean wider than the world
The ocean always, ever, known
Dream in our darkest, deepest, home.
Dream little one
Dream in our darkest, deepest home
The ocean always, ever, known,
The ocean wider than the world
Before the continents grew old
Before the age of endless ice
Dream in the ocean that was once our own
Sleep in the ocean of your dreams
Sleep little one
Hush
*Translated from the Saurian
Shoof-Shoof
Shoof-Shoof
Shoof-Shoof
Shoof-Shoof
What is that sound?
Shoof-Shoof, Shoof-Shoof.
Is it a train? No it is not!
Choof-Choof is a train
Choof-Choof
Is it a pigeon up on the roof?
I’ll tell you the truth.
It’s certainly not. Pigeons go
Coof, Coo…ooof,
Coo…ooof.
Enough of these games.
I’ll tell you for sure.
It’s Charlie the baby
let loose on the floor.
He’s only nine months,
he crawls like a pro.
Shoof-Shoof, Shoof-Shoof.
Just watch him go.
Andrew Dixon is a retired scientist. He contributed a poem (in the voice of a child) to ‘Poems for Grenfell Tower’. He sings in a choir which he feels has taught him to listen, really listen, to sound associations and rhythms. He is also a strong believer in learning good poetry by heart in order to understand how it works. |
Lizzie Ballagher
Cry of the Celts
In the pinch of a late winter
that should have flown north by now
to leave a southern spring,
she moves down Sauchiehall:
then sideways into snarling alleyways
& slipshod streets.
A piper in full Highland dress,
his cheeks florid, cap askew,
scarlet tartans flapping
in the skirling wind
plays “Flowers of the Forest”,
“The Water Is Wide”—O Waly, Waly!
She listens inside her hands & feet
& deep in her breastbone:
so many fluttering pennants of liquid song
rolling & unscrolling in thin rivulets & tendrils
to inundate her heart,
ensnare her soul.
His music blindfolds her to shoppers, cars
& blathering shop windows; so now through muffling tears
she hears instead only the blood-red-curdling
ribbon-uncurling melody swirling
scalding purple stain
from lost ancestral glens & crags.
The plaint & wail of pipes pours out,
overflows the heather air;
then raises her, sweeps her
over paving stones,
lifts her, free of weeping,
light as dancing, to float forever away.
Celtic knot found in translation
seed to stem to leaf
root to tree to fruit
flower to weed to grief
wood to coal to soot
soot to hearth to home
heart to hands to knees
moors to hills to roam
shells to sand to seas
seas to heave to sky
boats to breeze to run
sails to curve to fly
rays to flame to sun
sun to rise to light
stars to blink to fire
moon to wane to night
dusk to church to choir
choir to song to words
cloth to weave to wear
door to woods to birds
help to peace to dare
dare to dream to dawn
eyes to close to sleep
hope to dance to morn
life to live to keep
keep to path to farm
sheep to fold to fleece
wool to wash to warm
joy to tears to cease
cease to stand to cold
bell to tower to ring
arms to reach to hold
love to bed to sing
sing to sow to grain
shoes to walk to feet
soil to plough to rain
plant to sprout to wheat
wheat to bread to bake
fields to grow to feed
time to clocks to take
corn to gold to seed
seed to stem to leaf:
one knot shall salve all grief
Lizzie Ballagher was educated in England, Ireland and the USA. A member of the Society of authros and the UL Poetry Society, she now writes mainly about landscapes.She was winner of the Clayhanger Press cinquain competition in 2020 and has been runner up in competitions with the Welsh Poetry Competition and the Geoff Stevens Memorial Competition. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and webzines: Poetry on the Lake, Words for the Wild, Alchemy Spoon, Dreich, the Ekphrastic Review, Spelt, Visual Verse. For a year in each case, she served as poet in residence for A Poem a Day (a schools’ poetry website) and for the National Trails’ website for the South Downs Way. Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies such as that produced by the Poetry Society and Forward Press for Places of Poetry. Recently, she has been commissioned to write for two composers, Richard Hubbert (“Pushing back Night”) and Simon Mold (“Merciless Day: Chaconne for the Fallen”, now track 8 on Song Cycles, Heritage Records; also “Hold Me High” and “For Others”: Chichester Music Press). |
Stephen Paul Wren
An Ode to Blood Pressure
For Scipione Riva-Rocci
I did not dwell on cell types
or colour.
Only the pressure of blood
in my veins.
My blood became the star of my theatre.
I thanked my parents and cognates
and all
other guides
as the star poured out its life
over seats (the cheap ones and the plush ones).
Behind the stage and curtain was a heart.
A machine that pumped.
(A boundless wonder).
Its sacred physics reached all my organs
in the theatre.
The immense pressure in my feet
as I stood.
I buckled under
the weight of my blood.
The banging of life against my vessels
was the first act,
second act,
and all acts.
The pressure built up on the theatre’s damp insides.
I saw an exit door contort during
one machine beat and another one flexed,
between beats,
in this bold ticker cycle.
The space was safe
so I just clapped and clapped.
Stephen Paul Wren studied at Cambridge (Corpus Christi College) and worked in industry for many years. He transitioned back into academia at Oxford (St Hilda’s College) before joining Kingston University in 2018 where he works as a Senior lecturer in pharmaceutical chemistry. Stephen's poetry can be read at www.stephenpaulwren.wixsite.com/luke12poetry and you can find him on Twitter @Stephen34343631. His book ‘Formulations’ (co-written with Dr Miranda Lynn Barnes) was published by Small Press in 2022. His book 'A celestial crown of Sonnets' (co-written with Dr Sam Illingworth) was published by Penteract Press in 2021. Also, Stephen's poetry has appeared in places such as 14 magazine, Marble Broadsheet, Consilience, Tears in the Fence and Dreich magazine. |
Alice Willington
Ultrasound
(for Sophie and her ferocious strength)
the screen turned on, waiting –
a minute translates
echoes to light.
My heart white silver,
pulsing,
fast calculus
triangulates, zooms,
finds the blood reluctant
to leave the ventricle,
a second repeat
after the boom,
a hesitation of butterfly wings
before flight
anyone might pause,
surprised from insouciance
by long Saharan heat,
but Life insists, beat.
Alice Willington won second prize in the 2009 Ledbury Poetry Competition and in 2012 was included in Lung Jazz, an anthology of British poets under forty. My poems have appeared in Magma, Under the Radar, Lucent Dreaming, The Harlequin, Horizon Review, New Linear Perspectives, Molossus, and Avocado. Her pamphlet Long After Lights Out was published by Eyewear in November 2015. |
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