{"id":9855,"date":"2015-12-26T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T09:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=9855"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:20:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:20:25","slug":"on-the-fourth-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you-katherine-stansfield-and-reuben-woolley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/on-the-fourth-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you-katherine-stansfield-and-reuben-woolley\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Fourth Day of Christmas we bring you Katherine Stansfield and Reuben Woolley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>No room at the inn\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All the animals in the animal basket<br \/>\nwanted to go: Stegosaurus,<br \/>\npolar bears, Lego dog.<br \/>\nWe let in a camel and a donkey<br \/>\nonly on sufferance. They watched<br \/>\nfrom the back, blocked by pandas.<\/p>\n<p>The crib was crammed: shoe-box<br \/>\nsize, wooden, cotton wool snow<br \/>\nglued to the tin-foiled top. Our desert<br \/>\nin the dining room was cold.<br \/>\nStacks of straw kept everyone<br \/>\nwarm but because we wouldn\u2019t do wisps<br \/>\nwe lost baby Jesus early on.<\/p>\n<p>The angel with a \u2018gloria\u2019 sash lashed<br \/>\nto the stable door was meant to be<br \/>\never-descending. We spent Christmas<br \/>\nknocking her off on the way<br \/>\nto the kitchen and having to rehang<br \/>\nher chipped china robe.<\/p>\n<p>Each night we said sleep tight, Lego dog,<br \/>\nsleep tight, panda family, sleep tight,<br \/>\nJoseph and Mary, but when<br \/>\nwe\u2019d climbed the wooden hill<br \/>\ndisaster struck our Bethlehem: the cat \u2013<br \/>\ncrib-fancier, straw-lover, jealous, always,<br \/>\nof religious icons \u2013 pushed<br \/>\nherself in, knocked everyone out.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Katherine Stansfield<\/strong>\u2019s first collection, <em>Playing House<\/em>, was published by Seren in 2014. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including <em>The Guardian<\/em> online poem of the week, <em>Magma<\/em> and<em> Poetry Wales.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Blog: <a href=\"http:\/\/katherinestansfield.blogspot.it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/katherinestansfield.blogspot.it\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>promised an advent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>we reached out for new days<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">said mary.it wasn&#8217;t<\/p>\n<p>a question of comfort<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&amp;john came through<\/p>\n<p>in tumult\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0a repeat<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">of doors<br \/>\nopening<\/p>\n<p>he locked his steps behind him<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">said<\/p>\n<p>grass will cover<br \/>\nthe old &amp; pissed on.glitter<br \/>\ndistracts &amp; distracts<br \/>\nwe don&#8217;t see<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">the rusty times<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">i have<\/p>\n<p>no doubt<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">he said\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0turning off<\/p>\n<p>lights &amp; carrying<br \/>\ncandles<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">this will be<\/p>\n<p>a final\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0strategy \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0to hold<br \/>\n&amp; fuck<br \/>\nour bastard heads.lie<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">low<\/p>\n<p>&amp; let them play in sand<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reuben Woolley<\/strong> has been published in <em>Tears in the Fence, The Lighthouse Literary Journal, The Interpreter&#8217;s House (<\/em>forthcoming) and\u00a0<em>Ink Sweat and Tears<\/em> among others. A collection,<em>\u00a0the king is dead,<\/em> 2014, a chapbook,\u00a0<em>dying notes,<\/em> 2015.\u00a0Runner-up: Overton Poetry Pamphlet competition and the Erbacce Poetry Prize, both in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; No room at the inn\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All the animals in the animal basket wanted to go: Stegosaurus, polar bears, Lego dog. We let in a camel and a donkey only on sufferance. They watched from the back, blocked by pandas. The crib was crammed: shoe-box size, wooden, cotton [&hellip;]<\/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":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855","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=9855"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23969,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855\/revisions\/23969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}