Poetry

Poetry offers opportunity to relate to number, music and word simultaneously while engaging with imagination, memory and deep observation.

Rosie discovered poetry as a child and loved the sound of the words and the rhythms even when not knowing meanings. The song behind the words rings out in her work, which is often about the natural world or close observation of relationships. She likes humour and performs those poems at slams or literature events. She has also run a monthly poetry, song and story club in Ayr to encourage new performers to express themselves in a friendly supportive environment. She can run workshops to encourage new writers to play and stretch their horizons.

She attends Donnie O’ Rourke’s well-kent Glasgow poetry group meetings. Since 2012 has been working with the Scottish poetry library and Scottish storytelling Centre on the Living Voices project, bringing poetry, song and story as well as objects as prompts for conversation with groups of older people, many with dementia.

Here’s a couple as her poems as tasters:

Firstly a wee urban pigeon story from a trip to London:

 Euston Station, 11am

It’s never been easy being a pigeon

No its never been easy being a ‘grey’

There is food in the cracks in the pavements

But they sweep all the best of stuff away

 

Your legs get all wound up with the rubbish

With sparkly tinsel I’ve been bound

It doesn’t make me feel really festive

Just worried I’m so shiny I’ll be found

 

The crows call a warning “ ‘He’ is coming”

That’s the One, bright of beak and fierce of claw

Who hides under doorways by the station

Cramming yellow chicks into his maw. He’s

 

Marched out by his owner round the plaza

Jolly bells all a-jingle, proud and gay

And if we pigeons crowd round the tables

He flies up high to drive us all away

 

It’s hard to survive as urban pigeon

When councils put a hawk upon your tail

Sure, its survival of the fittest, but

I wish some tit would lead him from my trail

 

So I’ll be here early in the morning

Before the Bells and Jesses have arrived

Greet commuters and Big Issue sellers

And no more lunchtime cocktails on the side.

 

Next poem is about an event at Largs Station, when the train just didn’t stop at the buffers. Being married to a railway driver at the time, this meant rather more to me: train driving is a hazardous occupation, many drivers have suffered nervous breakdowns or PTSD. (I haven’t worked out how to preserve the dog-leg formatting for this one yet)

Terminal 11.7.95

O  six  fifteen             Three car

Electrical     Multiple        Unit

Glasgow                         Central

Destination:                     Largs

Scotrail’s    Sunrise         Livery

Pacer                               318254

Blazing                        Economy

Three     Commuters   Onboard

Driver                               Guard

After                        Kilwinnning

West Kilbride    Fairlie     Largs

Approaching                      Largs

(Cumbrae ferry,           Vikingar

Nardini’s icecream, promenade)

Retirement              Destination

Select                                 brakes

Zero                              Response

Emergency

No                                   Response

  almighty                            Bang

    Bogies       Ride         Buffers

     Three feet     into          the air

Seeking                     Direction

Pantograph          torn loose in

 runaway     railway      horror

ploughed length of concourse

Through shops in the main hall

            Like    a    set    of     dominoes

Whole.     building       shaking

Through           ticket         office

Towards the seaside fun and games

Victorian canopy              (1885)                   shattered

Station                            dis – integra – tes

Wee cafe

falls in her wake, impaled

As  the  breakfast   run

is   done.

 

Reminiscence work produced this wee piece:

Toasting forks

He made this fork

from scraps of wire

he salvaged afterward

from bomb sites

Fine, not frail

extending a forearms’

length protecting flesh

from flame. Roasting

crumpets on December days

from weekly Baker’s runs

Gale’s honey spooned to ooze

through pores and butter

seeping through the doughy core

of morning’s crusty slabs

Blackened with soot

and sweat from heaving coal

from bunkers

to fireside and dripping

soothing tonsils full

of winter chills, coating tongue

and palate thickly slick with

Butcher’s fat, potted into jars to give

a taste of fat-cat luxury, Sunday roasts

he never knew.

Quick fries of sausage link

pork chop with kidney on, a treat

for supper time, bread and

toasted cheese the usual

Pickles thick and onions

speared, this fork proudly portrays

his melting spot of

savoury desires while

toasting war-blackened

limbs by friendlier fires.