{"id":741,"date":"2010-07-12T10:08:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T10:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=741"},"modified":"2010-07-12T10:08:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T10:08:00","slug":"angela-topping-pictures-the-woman-on-a-station-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/angela-topping-pictures-the-woman-on-a-station-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Topping pictures the woman on a station platform&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Relinquishing Berlin<\/span><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"1\">For Monika<\/font><\/p>\n<p>Picture the woman on the station platform,<br \/>wind pasting woollen coat to her legs;<br \/>at her feet a small checked suitcase. <\/p>\n<p>The train she waits for will take her<br \/>back to Berlin and into a future<br \/>that could once have happened:<\/p>\n<p>her name known all over Germany<br \/>and beyond, to Hollywood,<br \/>her face gleaming in magazines,<\/p>\n<p>long legs in their seamed stockings<br \/>insured for thousands, her red hair<br \/>a trademark, famous, glamorous. <\/p>\n<p>This is the future she relinquished<br \/>to marry the poet she met at language classes,<br \/>how she was tempted to Liverpool,<\/p>\n<p>how she was wrapped in his love<br \/>until his heart gave out, leaving her<br \/>stranded in a strange country.<\/p>\n<p>No-one she loved is left in Berlin. <br \/>Her suitcase is full of poems,<br \/>her arms full of grandchildren. <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">*Angela Topping<\/span> has been writing poetry since childhood. She has published three solo collections and a book of children&#39;s poetry, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saltpublishing.com\/books\/cpl\/9781844717651.htm\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The New Generation<\/span><\/a>, is imminent from Salt. She works as a freelance writer, poet-in-schools and writes critical books for Greenwich Exchange. She wrote the poetry section in an OUP textbook for the new GCSEs.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relinquishing Berlin For Monika Picture the woman on the station platform,wind pasting woollen coat to her legs;at her feet a small checked suitcase. The train she waits for will take herback to Berlin and into a futurethat could once have happened: her name known all over Germanyand beyond, to Hollywood,her face gleaming in magazines, long [&hellip;]<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","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=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}