I’ve just counted and found that so far this year I have written 32 poems. They are all in various stages of drafting (as is this one below). I hope I’m learning. I’m reading a lot and taking the advice of poets at the Poetry School where there are some excellent and well priced, short downloads giving invaluable advice.
I notice that my mother appears in a fair few of my poems. This is not one of them but it is about a quilt and my mother and fabric were inseparable; her being a dressmaker.
Durham Quilt
Who slept under it,
made love, suckled, was laid out? In what parlour
was it made, stretched on the communal frame
bent over by taut faces in candlelight?
bought in the auction house of a northern town
thirty years later and barely used,
it trails blown from the line, snags on spine of
blossom hawthorn
colours ripple more land than sea, a corrugated
dry-stone stitching, first snow
swan’s wing, crow’s steal to line their nests
in spring
with what’s unravelled. I bring it in not wanting
waste, and besides
I have still to take it off and flaunt my nakedness
in this foreign place.
Oh what lovely words, what a poem of depth – ‘taut faces by candle light’ ‘corrugated dry-stone stitching’ so distilled.
I sit under my own Durham quilt to write in my drafting book.
So nice to see a poem here.
w
I sometimes sit under the quilt and meditate – so warm! Although not necessary in these summery temperatures!
A x
I’ve always found quilts and the method of quilting to be a source of inspiration. When I started working as a freelance writer I took the idea from quilting to leave a blank patch on my ‘Vision Map’ so that spirit could enter and bring me the type of opportunities which were in my best interests. The first unexpected project that came my way was one related to memories and historical research. Much of my work has been along that line since. Will you be quilting your poems? Perhaps you could leave a blank page for others to place their thoughts. Judith
What an amazing idea – to quilt my poems! I need to think about that. In the meantime I’m busy journaling an dmaking collages – maybe I could collage my poems – see next post
A x