New book next year

[sheenaghpugh]

I'll be publishing a new collection with Seren in about April/May 2019. It's called Afternoons Go Nowhere and here's a poem from it:

Quarff Gap

A place named for nothing,
a nothing, a space
in a spine of hills,

a great scoop of sky
in a green spoon, a doorway
from east to west.

A place with a past
before history started.
Think the river back,

the giant whose bed
you stand in. It would run
where the skuas balance

between two hills,
where air pours
in place of water.

Something was here,
now nothing is. Nothing
fills the eye,

bowl-shaped, windblown,
the colour of weather,
salt-flavoured, singular.

Who knew nothing
could be such a landmark?
From the North Sea,

sailing up this coast,
bays blur; nesses flatten out,
it's hard to tell

townships apart.
But no one can miss
the gap, the emptiness

that signs its name
across landscape, sky,
that draws the fancy

like a window, or rather
the space in a ruined wall
where a window was.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Such an apt poem for this time of year. Autumn seems to have arrived early, or if not quite autumn, we've certainly reached the end of summer.

[firefly1311.livejournal.com]

I like it very much that it starts on the inside (kitchen?), goes outside to have a look around and comes back (to a hopefully warm) inside. Right in the middle, long , where you could accomplish lots of tasks ( and I often waste lazing around) are gone. Good to know that other folks have the same feelings of urgency and lack of time when the days get shorter. And the picture of

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I like it very much that it starts on the inside (kitchen?), goes outside to have a look around and comes back (to a hopefully warm) inside. Right in the middle, long <afternoons>, where you could accomplish lots of tasks ( and I often waste lazing around) are gone. Good to know that other folks have the same feelings of urgency and lack of time when the days get shorter. And the picture of <time, up some ladder> is perfect and will keep me company this autumn. Thank you!