{"id":885,"date":"2010-11-15T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=885"},"modified":"2010-11-15T13:22:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T13:22:00","slug":"john-greening-is-at-forge-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/john-greening-is-at-forge-house\/","title":{"rendered":"John Greening is at Forge House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forge House<\/span>

for Valerie, in memory of our mother<\/span>
Betty Greening (n\u00e9e Turner), <\/span>
born May Whale<\/span>
<\/font>

He leans out of the door to the forge, holding a smile<\/span>
that might be simple courtesy or satisfaction<\/span>
with something he\u2019s made, but could be because of knowing<\/span>

more than us \u2013 about the craft of the smithy, of course,<\/span>
about the anvil itself, even, there next to him<\/span>
and what its beak and stern are for. But we know nothing<\/span>

about the secret of our mother\u2019s birth, which is here<\/span>
where he \u2013 this smith \u2013 once lived, who signed the certificate<\/span>
that gave her first name to oblivion. She is dead<\/span>

and didn\u2019t know she was born in a forge in Otham<\/span>
or that her name was beached here on the coast of Kent \u2013 rib<\/span>
I etch into chains of scrimshaw. Her childhood was fixed<\/span>

to a lathe and she was turned to what we knew. But what<\/span>
(between one shoe and the next) he knew of the you-shape<\/span>
crying its luck above him…?  Look how his right arm\u2019s wrought.<\/span>




*John Greening<\/span> received a Cholmondeley Award in 2008 and a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2010.  His most recent collection is Hunts: Poems 1979-2009<\/span><\/a> (Greenwich Exchange), a selection from eleven earlier books. He is a regular TLS reviewer.<\/span>
 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forge Housefor Valerie, in memory of our motherBetty Greening (n\u00e9e Turner), born May WhaleHe leans out of the door to the forge, holding a smilethat might be simple courtesy or satisfactionwith something he\u2019s made, but could be because of knowingmore than us \u2013 about the craft of the smithy, of course,about the anvil itself, even, […]<\/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-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","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=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}