Today’s choice

Previous poems

Viv Fogel

 

 

 

At the End of the Class

 

  1. The young woman in a hijab thanked/praised/appreciated me
  2. For all I had shown/ encouraged/ inspired in her
  3. Asked whether I observed/ took part in/ celebrated Rosh Hashanah?
  4. How did she find out/ realise/ discover that I was Jewish?
  5. I was shocked/ unprepared/ almost ashamed that she’d asked me
  6. Would that matter/ affect her?/ impact on our work together?
  7. Would she still trust/ accept support/ be taught by me?
  8. I wanted to explain/ dissociate from/ apologise for the genocide.
  9. I am silent/ confused/ there are no words. We exchange a look.
  10. Did something like recognition/ warmth/ sisterhood/ flit between us?

 

 

Viv Fogel London-based psychotherapist, poet, artist, grandmother, activist daughter of refugees. Her poems are published in many anthologies and journals. Recent collection is  Imperfect Beginnings  (Fly on the Wall Press,  2023) and she’s currently co-editing the writings of women in Afghanistan, to be published in October.

Sarah Boyd

He’s a house of cards, a delicately balanced pyramid
held together by hearing aids and dusty bifocals and
wobbling dentures and ageing pacemaker and
shirt with three buttons missing in action and

Samantha Carr

You became obsessed with nucleated red blood cells when you peeked through an
aperture window at your liquid, viscous nature. You became obsessed with maps

Helen Akers

we’re trying to construct a frame for this
‘highly reactive impulsive emotion’
the nurse is looking into it   

Jenny Robb

By the light of a wolf moon,
my father turns mad.
Anne whispers to a girl in the wind,
and a friend blows into my life.