Second Light Live > > >
Mary MacRae's collection
published Oct 07 by Second Light Publications is available from the site administrator. £7.95, cheque payable to Second Light, order from Anne Stewart, 20 Clovelly Way, Orpington, Kent, BR6 0WD. Tel 01689 811394. e-mail
Listen to Jennie Osborne reading There’s Something About a Woman Swallowing Flames
Our judge for January is Katherine Gallagher: our winner is Ann Alexander with The daughter from America. Congratulations to Ann, and to our runners-up – Anna Avebury, Margaret Eddershaw, Laurna Robertson and Vicky Wilson – whose poems will be submitted again to next month’s judge, along with 11 other poems.
The daughter from America
flies home to watch her mother die.
Hi mom, look, it’s me, your daughter, me –
Her voice strides confidently
round the Trauma ward,
a Yankee-doodle-dandy Cornish girl.
There are worse places to die,
and ancient Lizzie Annie rides the thermals
of the finest pharmaceuticals.
Still her cloudy eyes flick flick
from face to face, uncomprehending.
It’s your daughter, mom, come all this way –
The neon stranger in the corner
rattles words like pills.
Lizzie Annie, on the final lap
of her long journey home,
cries out, flutters the sheets.
And suddenly the daughter’s heart is back
on Helston’s granite streets.
She grips her mother’s hands
as if to hold her to the world,
cries dear of her, crumpling,
finding the proper words at last.
Poem published: Scryfa, December 2008
Judge’s comment:
Ann Alexander’s cameo of a daughter’s return home to see her dying hospitalised mother is layered with poignant resonances as the daughter, ‘a Yankee-doodle-dandy Cornish girl’ gradually peels back her ‘American’ self: – ‘It’s your daughter, mom, come all this way’
The images are moving, sparsely-drawn. The mother ‘rattles words like pills. / Lizzie Annie, on the final lap / of her long journey home, / cries out, flutters the sheets.’ And suddenly the ironies of all their journeys hone in on the final journey of these two as the daughter ‘grips her mother’s hands / as if to hold her to the world, / … finding the proper words at last.’ Powerful, spare, evocative.
Mammogram, by Anna Avebury
Golden Rule, by Margaret Eddershaw
Praise Song, by Laurna Robertson
Burst Pipe, London N1, by Vicky Wilson
