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From Fothermather<\/em><\/strong> An Apple Seed<\/strong><\/p>\n apple \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 cup \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0& \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shell book\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you roll yourself to where ell \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0you watch my lips to see the shell again the thing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 itself is waves the peel & rind \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0creaturely home \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0upon a time flux \u00a0 \u00a0the quantum world stretching twisting curving what is that sound what currency when you were still in shell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we counted you inside \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0another room\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to make came & went\u00a0\u00a0 till two weeks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 on you flexed from our eyes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 as out you came <\/p>\n Gail McConnell<\/strong> is one of the co-winners of the 2017 Ink Sweat & Tears\/Caf\u00e9 Writers Pamphlet Commission Competition and the pamphlet Fothermather<\/em><\/strong> is the result of that competition. She is a poet, literary critic and Senior Lecturer in English\u00a0at Queen\u2019s University Belfast and the author of Northern Irish Poetry and\u00a0<\/em>Theology<\/em> (Palgrave, 2014) and articles on Irish and British poetry. Gail\u2019s first\u00a0poetry pamphlet is Fourteen<\/em> (Green Bottle Press, 2018) and she is working on\u00a0a book featuring \u2018Type Face\u2019, a long poem published in Blackbox Manifold\u00a0concerning her experience of reading a Historical Enquiries Team Report\u00a0about her father\u2019s killing. Gail\u2019s poems have appeared in Poetry Review<\/em>, PN<\/em>\u00a0Review, Virginia Quarterly Review<\/em> and Stand<\/em>, and she is the recipient of two Arts Council Northern Ireland awards. A programme based on Fothermather<\/em> will\u00a0be produced by Conor Garrett and broadcast on Radio 4 in 2020.<\/p>\n Gail is featured in the panel discussion ‘Confinement: Exploring Feminist Perspectives’ at Poetry in Aldeburgh this evening and will be launching \u00a0Fothermather<\/em> at Cafe Writers in Norwich on Monday 11th November.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\nI say these things to you \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I read them
\nfrom the \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0book\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 book\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 book \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 this is\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a<\/p>\n
\nthe sound must be \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to sound to word to thing
\nto me the mouth that sounds out sssssssshhhhhhhh<\/p>\n
\ncome out \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0come out shell the shell
\ncomes out & curls itself around the air<\/p>\n
\nof sound \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for sound it is a swimming
\nmoving to & fro\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 vibrating shell<\/p>\n
\nspacetime is soft-bodied
\nEinstein said \u00a0 the mollusk \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>we are in \u00a0 \u00a0a constant<\/p>\n
\nyour small body to my own your hands
\nagainst my lips your fingers on my tongue<\/p>\n
\nis this what vessel for existing
\nssssssshhhhhhelllllllll<\/p>\n
\nin days \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 two cells on day one \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0four the second day
\nsix the third\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 when you were placed<\/p>\n
\nyour way an apple seed\u00a0\u00a0 a blueberry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 an ear
\nof corn\u00a0 \u00a0a coconut\u00a0 \u00a0the day of shelling<\/p>\n
\nwe were two Sauls\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 something like scales
\nsomething like shells\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 were falling<\/p>\n
\nyou come out with a cry just like the aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh
\nof apple<\/p>\n