Second Light Live > > >

Need help with travel to Second Light events? See Second Light Mary MacRae ‘Access to Poetry’ Fund

Poets of the Month (& see sample poem below, by Marg Roberts)

Featured Poets, January 2020 straight to poems
 

Jean Atkin, The Children of Lir
Simone Mansell Broome, Five Changes
Jamie Dedes, One Lifetime after Another
Jill Gardiner, At the Opera
Danielle Hope, In the kitchen
Pauline Kirk, Horned Animals, Mesolithic – possibly handles
Fokkina McDonnell, The twins have set up a tattoo parlour
Jennie Osborne, Salmon
Marg Roberts, Question
Joan Sheridan Smith, Tenderness
Sue Wallace-Shaddad, Under watching angels
 

Sample poem (selected at random)

Question

This hard, upholstered chair is not mine.
Through the windows men and women
get out of cars to go shopping.
 
The door is not our door.
In the corner of the room is an aquarium
Angel fish, Zebra fish and glints of colour.
We have a dog called Roger; we aren’t keen on fish.
 
Perfume fills the air like a disguise.
Two women
In uniform step into the room
Though no one is ill.
 
You frown.
You pat my hand.
I ask, ‘How are you?’
You do not answer.
In the palm of my hand a biscuit is melting.
I lick the chocolate
As delicately as a kitten.
 
Next to me, an elderly couple sit close on a settee.
She slips a hand into the front of his trousers.
Leaves
Fly
Off the trees.
 
You are frowning. Your lips move.
A woman says, ‘Time for tea.’
I get up from my chair and follow her.
A voice inside me, asks,
‘How did you know I was here?’
 
 
 
Author’s note: I wrote this poem as a way of trying to understand my mother’s experience of dementia.
 

Marg Roberts

Question, displayed in Wilde’s Wine Bar, the Parade, Leamington Spa

• Poet, Teacher, Inspiration – Dilys Wood and the latter-day Sapphos
• Dilys Wood Guest Blog – Ambitious Women Poets – at Brittle Star
• For a different look and feel, visit us on poetry p f
   
• Myra Schneider is a Consultant to Second Light Network.
   

Second Light Network – a network for women poets.

Founder and organiser:  Dilys Wood, 3 Springfield Close, East Preston, West Sussex, BN16 2SZ. e-mail  
Web Editor: Anne Stewart, e-mail  
Copyright© 2007 Second Light Network. All rights reserved.