by Helen Ivory | Dec 24, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Christmas Eve ‘I was all hers and we peeled potatoes’ – Clearances III, Seamus Heaney we set about our tasks. I was called to the kitchen where she was ribboning their freckled skin, the fall of my knife steady like hers, they hit the cold...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 23, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Poplars in the Mist A crow’s eye weighs the view: poplars and their spiky layers, mist – all froth & pomp & wisp. I am more poplar than mist. I am there in each defiant branch: stalky, not willowy, standing my ground. I am always reaching...
by Kate Birch | Dec 22, 2024 | Twelve Days of Christmas, Word & Image
a circle of radiance cradling the sun… on this winter’s morning we are held again by light Debbie Strange is a chronically ill short-form poet and artist whose work has been widely published internationally. Her award-winning haiku...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 22, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
The Christmas Market Her mother doesn’t want to linger here – cheap stuff from South America at cruelly inflated prices. Disgrace. But Nuala won’t be dragged away. There are wooden frogs that sing an ugly croaking song. Their coats are...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 21, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
The Solstice Turn Happiness starts coming back with winter chill. The cold raises the hairs on the back of our necks the way honesty does. The sky opens its arms to clouds and the setting sun paints them gradually into shadow. We hold back from...
