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*** 2018 POETRY COMPETITION now closed ***
next deadline: ARTEMISpoetry, poems 31st Aug, artwork 30th Sep

***Remote Workshop Perceptions of Time, by Myra Schneider
(Fanfare & Her Wings of Glass, both series still available) ***

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Poets of the Month (& see sample poem below, by Jill Townsend)

Featured Poets, August 2018 straight to poems

Ann Alexander, To the front, as night is falling
Isabel Bermudez, Heron speaks
Daphne Gloag, Dark Matter
Gill Horitz, What Lies in the Winter Wood
Lesley J Ingram, Unzipping
Carolyn King, Nectarine
Hylda Sims, Down Choumert Road
Joolz Sparkes, Gloucester Reimagined
Jill Townsend, Sun Block
Nola Turner, On the Road
Robin Winckel-Mellish, The Leaf Rakers
Dilys Wood, Mid-wife
Lynne Wycherley, Leaving Burray
 

Sample poem (selected at random)

Sun Block

At last the sun gives some warmth.
My body unwinds, learns itself
sinuous as the river.
Sweet grass flows beneath my hand
like the hair of an overheated child.
 
Through half-closed eyes I see
a swan, his little orange paddles
powering against the calm,
the barely resisting water.
 
My eyes close. Seed heads hiss
and part to the sudden shadow
of his spreading wings:
                                                  a shuddering
glimpse of no future trembles through me
and a voice saying Easy, Leda.
If I cry the grass scatters.
 

Jill Townsend

First published in the Agenda on-line supplement to the Rilke issue, Vol.42 3-4 and in print in Seeking Refuge ed. Jan Fortune (Cinnamon press)

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