So poignant, beautiful and deep. It is full of light and dark. Haunting and memorable.
With the word ‘beautiful’ being repeated again and again in comments, it is no surprise that Becky May’s ‘My Swallows’ is the IS&T Pick of the Month for November. Voters also loved its imagery, its intimacy its emotion and the dreaminess of it all, the hint of what editor Helen Ivory called folk-magic.
Becky May´s poetry and short fiction have been published in various literary magazines and anthologies, including Full House Literary, Ellipsiszine and Janus Literary. She currently lives in Granada and tweets at @beckymaywriter.
She has asked that her £20 ‘prize’ be donated to Action4Diabetes, the only charity which provides “continual Type 1 Diabetes support to people in South-East Asia who would otherwise not be able to afford it.”
My Swallows
after Ann Gray
I talk to the swallows
as they dip and dive
wonder if they return because of me.
I tell them the cactuses are dying,
that I’m the wild boar rooting around for grubs,
that I don’t sleep much these days.
I tell them the stars out here are pinpricks on paper,
a homemade camera, boxed in darkness where light filters through.
Patience, I tell them, is the key.
I whisper to them in Spanish, golondrina, golondrina.
They build their nest in my eaves, in my heart.
I tell them the almond blossom came in February,
that in the village they dress their children in white one month of the year,
that the black snakes have started appearing again.
The swallows sing to me of African reed beds, arrow their wings.
I tell them the day they left, the Sierra cried snow,
that I’ve been counting the days like coins,
waiting for riches to come.
More voters’ comments included:
It is beautifully written and the images are stunning.
It’s her dreamy conversation with the swallows that I love the whispering of dreams
I love Granada, and this poem captures the city beautifully
it made me cry
Wonderful imagery; tonal richness.
Because I love the golondrinas in Spain!
Beautiful simplicity
It contained the perfect touching images and sounds for these darkening days
I feel the intimacy, I feel like I’m there.
For hope for tomorrow
For its visual images and rhythm
Gentle, deep and beautiful
It’s evocative and three dimensional
Profoundly personal yet offering a universal beauty.
it’s beautiful, and I was transported to Andalucia watching swallows
A raw and emotional poem that brought me to tears.
Love the intriguing atmosphere inside the poem.
I liked the idea of (desperately?) pinning your hopes on something entirely divorced from your reality. Expressed with longing and subtle humour.
Lyrical, imagery, and emotional sway
I thought it was simply gorgeous. As a bird lover, that was a bonus, but the emotion of the poem is what really got to me.
Beautiful story telling, such evocative imagery.
The tender conversation, and wondering of nature’s connection to the observer
Truly elegant prose
Captures the fleetingness of nature and fragility of life
Full of mystery!
Es muy emotivo🥰
I loved the floaty, dreamy, mystical feel of this poem.
What a wonderful poem, conjuring up such vivid images. I love it Becky used one of my favourite words in Spanish.
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THE REST OF THE NOVEMBER 2022 SHORTLIST
Sean’s Ghost by Patrick Deeley
leans over the garden wall
next the hairpin bend
to hand me a rosy apple
with the same gesture
he himself showed
of a stumblebum evening
when I was a child
making my way home after
a bad day at school.
Though the apple holds
no substance now,
and though the giver
is dead, the kindness
travels forward and back
through the years
and will not perish or grow
immaterial even if
forgotten or left unsaid.
Patrick Deeley is a poet, memoirist and children’s writer from County Galway. He has won many awards for his writing and seven collections of his poems have appeared from Dedalus Press.
*
Dane Holt
Dane Holt’s poems have been published in Poetry Ireland Review,The Trumpet, The White Review, Stand, bath magg, One Hand Clapping , Anthropocene and elsewhere. He is poetry editor of The Tangerine, a Belfast magazine of new writing.
*
Star Walks by Nina Nazir
Biro on paper, 2022 (text source from Sum: Tales of the Afterlife, David Eagleman, p.21)
Nina Nazir is a British Pakistani poet, artist and avid multi-potentialite based in Birmingham, UK. She has been published inUnlost Journal, Green Ink Poetry, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse and Free Verse Revolution among others. You can find her on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and Twitter: @NusraNazir
*
Toast by Carolyn Oulton
Ken (now Kenneth) shrugs. He can’t
have his liver ripped out after all
without his reading glasses.
I have Alzheimer’s.
Those marshes. I know.
Nigel (already regrettable) shares
a name with – let’s leave it at that.
Sends new guidelines, flow charts,
an email that made me want to
sing, one damp November day.
You with your date-stamped monikers
and decency. The Bobs, the Winifreds,
Peggys, Marys, Erics, Joyces, Sylvias.
Here’s to each and every one of you,
the Nigels and the Kens.
Carolyn Oulton is Director of the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers at Canterbury Christ Church University. She is project lead for https://kent-maps.online/ in collaboration with JSTOR Labs. Her most recent collection is Accidental Fruit (Worple).
*
Hotel Blue by Pam Thompson
(after John Ash)
1.
Above each of the sea-facing windows of Hotel Blue,
a canopy. At night the smell of fish and vinegar.
It’s a good place to fall out of love,
fall in love with someone else, a good place to tip out
clutter from your bag or pockets. On the way here you were
obliged to buy a pennant for the aerial of your car.
2.
One morning, in the sea-lit interior of the restaurant
of Hotel Blue, a stranger will pass by as you are
contemplating your cereal and say, You don’t know
how much your fecklessness frightens people. It
hits them like an electric current. And you’ll smile
at this barbed and random observation.
3.
The windows are open.
The sea is grey.
You wouldn’t for the world
compare this to anything.
4.
In your mind you are directing your own
Zombie Experience, wrapped in bandages,
dripping stage-blood, happy in the knowledge
that at least one person will take this personally.
That person no friend of yours, the sort who would
say, Visit me differently or don’t bother.
5.
Think of yourself as a wave, or a fishing-rod.
Slam a shore or dangle bait. Think of yourself
as a slightly open door. And then close it.
Too often you sense that you’re sealed in
a cardboard tube after the poster’s been
tipped out and unfurled. Your hand shakes
as you hold your book. It must be the coffee.
6.
These are the kind of random thoughts
that when chewed will hurt your teeth.
You worry there’s a hole that can’t be filled.
You worry your bandages will fall off
in the night, and that the apocalypse
was only valid as long as the leaflet was in date.
The Zombies are assembling in the play-area.
7.
The woman you’ve discarded
will follow that man
down to his evening boat
knowing she’s hidden his oars
will walk behind him on the shingle
recognising him as no rower
nor sailor— that he merely likes the idea of sea.
He’ll turn and she’ll be transparent.
as she sometimes is,
and he’ll know that she’s seen right through him
and will be relieved.
8.
The night is already full of murmured conversation.
Hotel Blue is glowing in the dark.
This is an interval in your lives.
Soon you must look to plots, masks
and backdrops of your next act.
The last page you read. There’s a sense
of everything closing down, waking up.
Pam Thompson is a writer, educator and reviewer based in Leicester. Her works include include The Japan Quiz(Redbeck Press, 2009) and Show Date and Time, (Smith|Doorstop, 2006). Her collection, Strange Fashion, was published by Pindrop Press in 2017. She is a Hawthornden Fellow.