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Julie has published in various magazines and anthologies, (including Frogmore Papers, Otter, Shearsman, Foolscap, Envoi, Headlock, PQR, Making Worlds). She edited Mary Lady Chudleigh, Selected Poems (Shearsman, 2009) and is working on a book of poems about Devon’s women writers.
Great Grandfather's garden, ‘Wildridge’,
North Tawton; Storm 1990
No
trees;
no wellington boot
stuck in the third branch
of the juniper fir; no aunt
shrieking Get down, you’ll fall;
no owls on the sticking-out top
of Douglas tree, to hoot back to
from Micheal’s room; no
where to go when you want to swing
in wind and help not-quite-ripe-apples
fall; no camp to climb to in the copper beech
on Saturday mornings and read Ladybird comics
while sucking your thumb.
No
swing;
no swing on the weeping willow.
You can point to the speck
on the black and white photo:
that’s Geat Uncle Michael,
there on top of the Douglas fir,
but they won’t believe you,
Grandchildren won’t believe you.
What will they say
when you tell them about the monkey
that still chucks bananas
from the puzzle tree?
Poem published in Otter magazine
web-site South West Women Writers and Devon research blog
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