Grant Me This - for #nationalpoetryday

I was asked to be one of the #BBCLocalPoets - for #Cambridgeshire - to compose a new #poem as if from the point of view of a local landmark or geographical feature of the area.

After putting it out to people via social media, the one feature that came out again and again was that of the river (in various different ways - as visual feature, bridge-bearer, punt-vehicle, houseboat-home, wildlife-habitat, etc.) and, as it stretches across the whole county, it seemed a good way to celebrate and inhabit the character of the county (bearing in mind that the poem needed to be less than two minutes long and "not political").

It was recorded yesterday, down by the Chesterton Road stretch of the river, and you can see/ hear me read it (somewhat creakily - this is my fifth week of severe laryngitis) here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b4cpv



I also went on breakfast radio to be interviewed and to perform some of it live in the studio. I am not a mornings person. It was interesting... :)

(If you want to hear what I sound like early in the morning with laryngitis, check out this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0482z92 - the segment starts at 01:46:55)

Full text below - enjoy! :D  (Credit needs to be given to Carla Keen for the line "Catch, catch, catch..." which I heartlessly stole from a beautiful poem she wrote about her love of rowing.)

Grant Me This

Birthed beyond borders,
I rise in the west,
Scrawl a course
Of eccentric penstrokes
Across this palimpsest.
With my sisters
I weave a drench of memories,
Stretching to the new day's edge.

I have carried you
On my broad back -
Gambolling new beginnings,
Fleece, stone, and corn meal,
Vellum and sand,
Two-tongued, poling solo,
Always with a weather eye
To the next angle.

You have inscribed me,
Drawing me deep into histories,
Gleaming lines sighing,
Igniting visions, lingering
In civilisation's litanies
For those who came before
And all who dream of
Divining mysteries.

I was named backwards,
Shaped by the town
Around which I curve,
A cupped palm,
A charm of siren sounds,
Enclosed and disclosing,
Ringing with myriad bell-tongues
Flooding this rich ground.

Cast me between walls
And I surge and curvette,
Beckon evolution's remedies and
Ambition's gravity,
Leaning into the gradient of Best,
Cresting sly wins at the
Narrowest of passes -
On your marks, get set.

I creak in the mornings -

Gasp and echo the endless
Catch, catch, catch…
Scratching glory etched deep
In the clutch and pull of legs,
Mist-rimed breaths, swelling shoulders,
Cold noses, and warm hearts,
Regardless of your team's net.

In the evening I chug,
Bank-huggers making fragrances
Of home - curtained and potted,
Dot-and-carry dance partners,
These happy-anchored vagrants,
Swaying, framed in gold paint,
Named for the way I spell freedom,
And tomorrow's chances

Your ancestors built me steps,
Bedecked me with loving chains,
Cross-stitching me with sighs and pigsties,
While monarchs, mathematics,
And dragons all stake their claims
As I stride on, lop-sided,
A reminder that, together,
We have made a grace of strangeness.

Flipside

for Jude Cowan Montague

What must they think of us?
Hands up, wailing,
Caught between arguments
That mean nothing to our day-to-day

Bodies spin in dust and blood,
Throats raw, mouths stretched
To silent screams,
Exhausted by tragedy.

Pick up the pieces
Stretch out hands to those
Too far gone to see them,
Heads sunk to heaving chests
Get on with another day in hell.

What must they think of us?
Hands up, wailing,
Baffled by arguments
That mean nothing to our day-to-day

Heads spin at images of dust and blood
Clenched jaws stretch
To silent yawns,
Exhausted by tragedy.

Click on the pieces
Stretch to electronic pats for those
Too far away to be real,
Heads sunk to comfortable navels
Get on with another day in heaven.


Jude works as a Media Archivist and is currently sifting through images from the latest conflict in Gaza. The first line comes from a social media status update she made...

Juno - for International Women's Day

Last weekend I was interviewed about female role models for a film about IWD. I was doing well until I couldn't remember the word "intersectionality" - a mouthful at the best of times - and I kind of stumbled.  But it worked out okay, I think, because I  was able to explain the concept in more depth. And passion.

That experience had me remembering a talk I attended where someone suggested that, because educated middle-class women are doing okay these days, feminism is no longer necessary. I boiled silently (because I was working at the talk and couldn't storm the stage), but I promised myself I'd respond, and here's the (draft - it definitely needs work) poetic riposte, started last night - there are probably sufficient clues to work out who it was:

Juno

Here are lines on a screen,
Here are numbered truths,
Here is a quiet celebration,
A congratulatory stage.

And here is rage,
And disbelief.
I look up to you
And gauge the narrowness
Of your gaze
The ways your numbers
Let others tumble
Into what you have not said...

And you could be me
In twenty years' time,
White as milk,
Educated to the hilt,

Comfortably well-spoken,
The only discernible difference -
You do not love women
As I do.

And you smile kindly,
Talk of victory.
You consider the race run,
That we won,
Job done -
Down tools, everyone.

I wonder.
Do you see beyond
Your comfort
To even the streets
Outside your door,
Poor in sympathy
As you are rich
In every other measure
Deafened by your learning,
Unable to step into the head
Of the next woman,
Leaden legged,
Knocking on the pane
Above her head
Put back there, tidily,
By you.

How do you dare,
When the invisible millions
Howl for their aborted daughters,
The halters they wear,
The burdens they bear,
The gruelling lives of those
who cannot share
Your blessings,
Voiceless while you,
Who never bled for any other,
Claim to speak the lives
Of every woman born to silence.

You pluck the tongues
from their skulls
In big sisterly insistence
That you know best,
Wrest their stories
From their grasp,
Palm off their gasps
As needless attention-seeking.

What will we tell our daughters
About you -
Schooled to ruthlessness,
Deaf to the call of blood to blood,
Dumbfounding quintessence of smug,
Unwilling to touch the outstretched palms
Of those outside your graphs?

I will falter,
I will stumble,
I will seek to be proved wrong
As many times as I can bear
And bear up the steps of those
Who fall by the wayside of your carriage,

And those who move

On different paths from yours,
Celebrate the victories,
And rage for the pain,
Safe in the knowledge
That those I hold this close
Are true family.

And I will call you by

your real names
As loudly as I can,
And bare your shame.

7pm Regent Street

It's a long walk
Trotting clumsily
And late, carrying
My own beration
Until I choose
To let it go.
I'm the only one
Scurrying, muscles
Knotting, a clot
Of office-dressed
Momentum in a sea
Of those disposed
To partying.

And now, side-stepping,
Breath drowning in the
Aftershave scents,
Desperate stares
And cigarettes
Of early Friday
Summer evening,
Weaving my way
Through cleavage
And pecs, loud laughs
And gazes
Paving the way
For the after-dark...

I am smoke.
Or a tributary
With a different
Purpose.
I used to feel
Cursed but I know
I'm just a different
Verse of a song
That was being written
Long before I was conceived
And will echo long
Beyond these bones
Achieving dust.

I am not corruption,
Not rust on a pristine
Sheen, a blemish,
I am free. Not better
Either, just a different
Set of steps,
A counterpoint -
Belated and berated
Syncopation in this
Never-ending dance.
Chance led me
To this place and now,
By everything
That I hold dear,
I'll choose to live
The life that love
Has given me.