{"id":9416,"date":"2015-10-10T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T08:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=9416"},"modified":"2015-10-03T10:52:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T10:52:46","slug":"to-celebrate-light-for-national-poetry-day-jody-porter-stephen-bone-angela-topping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/to-celebrate-light-for-national-poetry-day-jody-porter-stephen-bone-angela-topping\/","title":{"rendered":"To Celebrate ‘Light’ for National Poetry Day: Jody Porter, Stephen Bone, Angela Topping"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Heat<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In these heat days<\/p>\n

when the sun displays a fiery godhead<\/p>\n

and ordains the liquefaction of Tarmac<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and the deadest of nights bring a crackle of crickets<\/p>\n

and all the bedrooms burn in airless struggle<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to turn the pillow then and face its coolness<\/p>\n

is like the ocean’s hand upon your cheek<\/p>\n

and is the sweetest saviour after love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jody Porter<\/a> is poetry editor of The Morning Star<\/a>. His work has appeared in Magma, Best British Poetry<\/em> (Salt) and elsewhere. Originally from Essex, he now lives in London and runs events at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Windfall<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I watch the shallow rise<\/p>\n

and fall of your chest<\/p>\n

as you sip thimblefuls<\/p>\n

of air. Listen to the clock<\/p>\n

move on the day, the tea trolley<\/p>\n

come and go. I tidy your bottles,<\/p>\n

touch your face. Tidy them again.<\/p>\n

I pour water, wind your watch.<\/p>\n

Open the blind; a windfall<\/p>\n

of sunlight drops around your bed.<\/p>\n

I gather it up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stephen Bone<\/strong>‘s work has appeared in various journals in the U.K. \u00a0and U.S. First collection In The Cinema, <\/em>available from www.playdeadpress.com<\/a> and from Amazon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Morning<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dawn rises slowly over the Straits,<\/p>\n

creeping light slips through the mist.<\/p>\n

The pines observe like sage old men.<\/p>\n

Across the water, mountains<\/p>\n

keep fast their secrets. I would<\/p>\n

bring you a morning such as this<\/p>\n

to walk through woods in, our skin<\/p>\n

turning from blue to ivory as broad day<\/p>\n

replaces the shreds of night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela Topping<\/strong> has published seven full collections and three chapbooks, all with reputable publishers. In 2013 she held a writer\u2019s residency at Gladstone\u2019s Library and won first prize in the Buzzwords competition judged by David Morley Her poems have appeared in over 50 anthologies and many magazines such as\u00a0Poetry Review<\/em> and London Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

From The Way We Came<\/em> (bluechrome 2007)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Heat   In these heat days when the sun displays a fiery godhead and ordains the liquefaction of Tarmac   and the deadest of nights bring a crackle of crickets and all the bedrooms burn in airless struggle   to turn the pillow then and face its coolness is like the ocean’s […]<\/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-9416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416","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=9416"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9418,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416\/revisions\/9418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}