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The Paper-Wasp<\/strong><\/p>\n I tracked her by the sound her mouthparts made: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christine Whittemore<\/strong> is based in her home county Gloucestershire after years in the US. Her\u00a0poems have appeared in many publications, including\u00a0The American Scholar, Orbis, Outposts,<\/em> and Antiphon<\/em>, and\u00a0won several awards.\u00a0Her novel Inscription<\/em>\u00a0is out now. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 This is her website:\u00a0http:\/\/www.christine-whittemore.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Paper-Wasp I tracked her by the sound her mouthparts made: rasp, rasp, on a dry stick. She straddled it and worked her jaws, reviving something dead, collecting shreds of fibre. Once, in Egypt, strips of plant stem, pressed in crisscross bands, were made into smooth sheets\u2014a list, a map of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11360"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11362,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11360\/revisions\/11362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nrasp, rasp, on a dry stick. She straddled it
\nand worked her jaws, reviving something dead,
\ncollecting shreds of fibre. Once, in Egypt,
\nstrips of plant stem, pressed in crisscross bands,
\nwere made into smooth sheets\u2014a list, a map
\nof the world beyond, a glove for midwives\u2019 hands
\nso the child, born into papyrus, would not slip.
\nRasp, rasp on a dead stalk; she chews old string
\nto papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9, buy valtrex 1gm online<\/a> builds her fluted chambers,
\na symmetry of shadows, multiplying.
\nHer children prosper, folded in the aumbries,
\ncradled in paper, smocked in the complex fabric,
\nthe house the wasp has made, her enduring book.<\/p>\n