by Helen Ivory | Dec 11, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Progress Wasn’t there a time when All that adult talk Of a past where dark skin Swung from trees, And ballot boxes beyond the reach of women’s hands, Seemed like a sad dream? I was a full-bellied child. “Famine” was an antique word, Rusting like...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 10, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Potluck What do you bring to the table? A bunch of sweet-smelling herbs in a clenched fist, a salad of green leaves plucked today and drenched in tears, a loaf of bread studded with seeds as hard as pearls, a serrated knife with teeth that cut to...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 9, 2017 | Reviews
It should, in the interests of full disclosure, be recorded that this reviewer has been trumpeting the merits of Alan Morrison’s erudite and tendentious verse for over a decade now. Online, in conversation and -once previously, in a book review- Morrison’s...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 8, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Soul-Bird When I see you walk, stiff-legged, over the shingle, I wonder whose child you are, which widow waits for you, cursing the water. You spar and snatch for lukewarm chips, your bright bill jabbing vehemently, red-tipped, as if you’d...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 7, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
The Pine Tree The inside of its bark is red, its heartwood is red; when a branch is cut the wound is red and it weeps, not blood, but thick white tears. Gill McEvoy, winner of the 2015 Michael Marks Award for The First Telling...
