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Mary MacRae’s second collection
published Aug 10 by Second Light Publications. See order form (pdf file) for discount offers
Listen to Gill McEvoy’s poem Glass Bird in a Shop Window (read by Anne Stewart)
Need help with travel to Second Light events? See Second Light Mary MacRae ‘Access to Poetry’ Fund
October 2013, Round 7, Month 2… Our judge this month is Joy Howard of Grey Hen Press. Joy has selected her winner: Angela Croft’s Dancing with Chagall and her four commended poets: Susan Davies, Laurna Robertson, Ann Segrave and Lynne Wycherley, whose poems will be included in those sent to a different judge next month.
It’s all very well allowing him to fling
you up into the air
your purple skirt waving like a flag
above the rooftops
your feet in the clouds
but what will you do if it turns to rain
up in the sky without a hat
those strappy shoes, that scrap of cloth
that hardly passes as a blouse
slipping off your shoulder
to show your luminous skin
your fragile bones
him with fire in his eyes clasping
your hand as if he’d never let you fall
and you so very, very brittle
Judge’s comment:
This poem reads like a dance. It’s light, airy, free-flowing, and also visual – the movement and colour of the painting it is based on is beautifully evoked. The artistic matrix of power, control and frailty is examined with a light hand, making it all the more telling. This poem makes you think about who your work belongs to, or whether indeed it has a life of its own.
23 Fitzroy Road, Primrose Hill, by Susan Davies
Praise Song, by Laurna Robertson
Aviatrix, by Ann Segrave
Leaving Burray, by Lynne Wycherley
