{"id":1515,"date":"2008-12-14T19:05:20","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T19:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2008-12-14T19:05:20","modified_gmt":"2008-12-14T19:05:20","slug":"catching-up-with-our-podcast-back-catalogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/catching-up-with-our-podcast-back-catalogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching up with our podcast back catalogue."},"content":{"rendered":"

Although we've published the texts of these three poems by Helen Pletts before, we've now got audio recordings of Helen reading them aloud. So, as part of our podcast programme, here are the words \u2013 and the sound…<\/span>


Bottle bank<\/span>
  <\/span>
A lean-trousered scrabble;<\/span>
Pressed aside the green-breast-curve, toe-tipped<\/span>
Arched form a-gape-reaching,<\/span>
Visage-crimson-cold.<\/span>
A jagged white slit creases the cheek;<\/span>
And the human bright-blue-eye<\/span>
Echoes love lost, the pricelessness of heart;<\/span>
Scattered, like the glass shards<\/span>
You hopelessly filter. Your stick twists<\/span>
But it won\u2019t stretch, nor grasp without prehensile<\/span>
Tendency, the bottle's neck.<\/span>
<\/font>

Travelling<\/span>
 <\/span>
You have been travelling with me for decades;<\/span>
even before you were born;<\/span>
your toothbrush next to mine in my suitcase,<\/span>
the bristles damp from the cold water in our last hotel.<\/span>
 <\/span>
I tipped the porter through your fingers;<\/span>
your napkin wiped my lower lip;<\/span>
clean, white linen you had straightened <\/span>
by your plate at dinner.<\/span>
 <\/span>
There was a fold, a crease in the napkin,<\/span>
like the gristle-spine of a chicken carcass<\/span>
springing at my touch; indelibly pressed into the fibres,<\/span>
like my laundry tags with your name on.<\/span>
<\/font>

Sellotape<\/span>
 <\/span>
It\u2019s up to you whether you curl up on me and<\/span>
twist again;<\/span>
 <\/span>
taking so long to let me scrape my nail under your tail,<\/span>
wrapping up against me<\/span>

leaving the sharp adhesive scent of you on my hands<\/span>
that gets stronger with every pull.<\/span>
 <\/span>
And stranger than this,<\/span>
even though I try to deftly cut you up into neat strips,<\/span>
 <\/span>
you want to hold on to me;<\/span>
every trace of me, becomes you<\/span>
 <\/span>
in your glistening strip, as you isolate and snatch my fingerprints,<\/span>
decoding me.<\/span>
<\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although we've published the texts of these three poems by Helen Pletts before, we've now got audio recordings of Helen reading them aloud. So, as part of our podcast programme, here are the words \u2013 and the sound…Bottle bank  A lean-trousered scrabble;Pressed aside the green-breast-curve, toe-tippedArched form a-gape-reaching,Visage-crimson-cold.A jagged white slit creases the cheek;And the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry","category-word-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}