{"id":15012,"date":"2017-09-28T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=15012"},"modified":"2017-09-27T08:01:14","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T08:01:14","slug":"freedom-brian-johnstone-frank-dullughan-marcelle-olivier-for-national-poetry-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/freedom-brian-johnstone-frank-dullughan-marcelle-olivier-for-national-poetry-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom: Brian Johnstone, Frank Dullughan, Marcelle Olivier for National Poetry Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Branded Hand<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>This Daguerreotype was taken Aug. 1845. It is a copy of Captain Jonathan Walker&#8217;s hand as branded by the U.S. Marshall of the Dist. of Florida for having helped 7 men to obtain &#8216;Life Liberty, and Happiness.&#8217; SS Slave Saviour Northern Dist. SS Slave Stealer Southern Dist.<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inscription on reverse of <a href=\"https:\/\/justdohistory.wordpress.com\/tag\/jonathon-walker\/\">photographic plate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They printed this in Florida,<br \/>\na slave state still in forty-five,<br \/>\nits marshal with the power<br \/>\nto mark a man for life. Yet,<\/p>\n<p>he can\u2019t have lived for long<br \/>\ntill someone in New England<br \/>\npassed comment on his scars,<br \/>\ndesired that he submit again<\/p>\n<p>to steel that clamped the arm<br \/>\nlest movement spoil a plate<br \/>\nand new technology distort<br \/>\nthe marks that he displayed,<\/p>\n<p>his palm extended, opened<br \/>\nto their lens. As it had been<br \/>\nto coals, to branding irons,<br \/>\nthe double S that found him,<\/p>\n<p>in The South, slave stealer,<br \/>\nthief of someone\u2019s property<br \/>\nhe only saw as fellow men<br \/>\nin need. But, in The North,<\/p>\n<p>a saviour offering the chance<br \/>\nfor freedom crossing borders<br \/>\nmeant to those who\u2019d borne<br \/>\nthe scars or more themselves<\/p>\n<p>in multitudes, unrecorded,<br \/>\nnever photographed, but<br \/>\nfixed, as is this single print,<br \/>\nin time, a record of its hand.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brian Johnstone<\/strong>\u2019s work has published six collections, most recently <em>Dry Stone Work<\/em> (Arc, 2014), and his work appears on The Poetry Archive website. His memoir <em>Double Exposure<\/em> was published by Saraband in February 2017. <a href=\"http:\/\/brianjohnstonepoet.co.uk\/\">brianjohnstonepoet.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>*First published in Liberty Tales (Arachne Press, 2016)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Daughter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When a bomb un-housed us,<br \/>\nI gave what money I had<br \/>\nto a man with a boat.<\/p>\n<p>Her life will be large in Germany, he said.<br \/>\nMy sister will keep to her side.<br \/>\nMy travel must wait until there is more money.<\/p>\n<p>This chance was my daughter-gift.<br \/>\nI sent her into the dark,<br \/>\nwatched the bob of the boat become water.<\/p>\n<p>She fell off the edge<br \/>\nof my heart. I go each day to the sea,<br \/>\nwatch in vain for a note from her future.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I go down at night<br \/>\nwhen the far shore is closer.<br \/>\nMy neighbour\u2019s child was taken by soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>We live now on broken streets.<br \/>\nMy daughter is becoming a woman.<br \/>\nAt night, I can feel her<\/p>\n<p>looking over her shoulder.<br \/>\nI went with the chance of a chance<br \/>\nwhen I sent her. There are no gifts left<\/p>\n<p>that do not hold a hurt.<br \/>\nDaughter, do not look back.<br \/>\nI sent her to the dark of the far shore<\/p>\n<p>from this place of death.<br \/>\nI gave her to the living world,<br \/>\npaid the ferryman.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frank Dullaghan<\/strong>, widely published internationally, lives in Dubai. His 4th collection <em>Lifting the Latch<\/em> is due out from Cinnamon Press in May 2018.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>phantasy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>this miscellany is a herd of blushing<br \/>\npuku rusting out life<\/p>\n<p>on the banks of a grim and sandy river.<br \/>\nembarrassed for running<\/p>\n<p>when the time comes, still just wanting<br \/>\nto be near water.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>marcelle olivier<\/strong> is poet and archaeologist living in Cambridge. She has published regularly in both her native South Africa and in the UK and you can read some of her translations of contemporary South African poetry in the edited collection <em>in a burning sea<\/em> (Protea, 2015).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; The Branded Hand This Daguerreotype was taken Aug. 1845. It is a copy of Captain Jonathan Walker&#8217;s hand as branded by the U.S. Marshall of the Dist. of Florida for having helped 7 men to obtain &#8216;Life Liberty, and Happiness.&#8217; SS Slave Saviour Northern Dist. SS Slave Stealer Southern Dist. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inscription [&hellip;]<\/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-15012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15012","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=15012"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15032,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15012\/revisions\/15032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}