This was a question I was recently asked to answer – on behalf of Wenlock Poetry Festival and their search for the second ever Shropshire Young Poet Laureate. It was one of several questions. The answers that I and other poetry lovers gave can be found on
http://www.wenlockpoetryfestival.org/laureate/
Unfortunately I got somewhat carried away – there wasn’t enough room for the selection of poems that I wanted to share with everyone. So here they are now (one at a time because technology is not letting me lay them out as it should !!!)… Thank you poets xx
THE CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES for Shropshire Young Poet Laureate 2015 IS 5pm ON FRIDAY JANUARY 16TH 2015
Extract from a poem written for Radio: Longshire Drift Katrina Porteous
Ten a.m. Dean’s shed is full
Of strip-light, music and the smell
Of crab-meat, winkled from its shell.
At a bench the two men stand,
Each with a teaspoon in his hand,
Dean to the claws, Paul to the backs.
Michael’s balanced on a box,
Arranging small, square, snowy blocks
Of frozen squid on rows of hooks
That barely touch: a lifetime‘s skill.
Passing customers who call
For newspaper parcels of cod and sole
Pause at the door, stare inside,
Consume the three men with their eyes –
Salt-steeped, weary from the sea
In boots and oilskins, they appear
More present, anchored, and alive.
A static hiss. The music stops.
Dean picks a sole out of the box,
Peels its skin off like a glove.
Gale force eight, the radio warns.
He shrugs. Four lines still to haul.
It’s more than fish his callers buy.
© Katrina Porteous 2005 from Longshore Drift (Jardine Press Ltd).This poem is reproduced here with the kind permission of the poet.
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