The following poem is from The Years Fulfilled - The Collected Poems of Dorothy Gibson 1941- 2001
Fishing Boats at Leigh-on-Sea
Ebony boats poised midway between
apricot sea and sky,
or squat and square under flyaway clouds
on a running tide;
post-impressionist boats on a smudgy dawn,
or motionless on a frozen sea
with a handful of stars:
smoke grey in ebb tide mud and mist of rain.
Little cockle boats with sturdy ribs
and solid hulks with a haul of fish
coming home through a rain of fire
from the dropping sun,
as they once came home from Dunkirk:
little fleet with a haul of courage
and of grief.
From sea and sky and boats
on a stream of coloured days
I have a haul of dreams,
shining and strange and sharp
as a heap of cockle shells.
Dorothy Gibson
MERVYN LINFORD - SAMPLE POEM:
Hedgibet*
Thin and scratchy, that’s the sound of the dunnock:
the sound, if you like, of spring –
not yet full-throated
just beginnings
It floats, if floats is the word for a song,
above the celandine, the stitchwort and the sorrel
like a ghost of former springs and other people.
A sound that brings them back:
children I knew, now dead, in the woods
at One Tree Hill or Westley Heights –
arms full of bluebells before ecology
with ears attuned to the chiffchaff,
the yaffle and the cuckoo.
Like the windup gramophone I found on Pitsea Tip:
the box of needles, Tommy Steele, Pat Boone,
- The Laughing Policeman –
Thin and scratchy
as I think of
all those boys
the girls I fancied.
The spring, slack, unwound, unwindable:
going back a virtual recording in the mind
as the dunnock sings
- If sings
is the word
for a needle
in a groove –
Stuck. Thin. Repetitive. Scratchy.
*(Hedge Accentor, Hedge Sparrow or Dunnock)
The above piece was a commended poem in the George Crabbe poetry competition of 2018
NEIL LEADBEATER - SAMPLE POEM:
DOCK
How we mistreated you,
tore off your leaves
to rub against our skin
hoping that you would take the sting
out of living.
We hurt you
because we our selves were hurt.
We lashed out
and left the nettle alone.
It was cowardly, I know,
and our shame grew
like the green stain
you left on us -
the mark on the palm
of the hand.
Published in 'Finding the River Horse' Littoral Press 2017
Adrian Green - Sample Poem:
Chasing Dylan’s Muse in Rathbone Street
“To the drunken Welsh poet who staggered towards her through the smokey fug
of The Wheatsheaf, she appeared an angelic beauty.”
(The Observer, Sunday November 26, 2006)
A long way from Swansea
to this place, made famous
by your meeting
and it is hard to imagine the energy,
excess of words and ale,
the arguments and laughter
surrounding you.
The wooden panels oppress,
close down the space, and darken
the bar I sit and scribble in.
More serious now,
yet there is tradition,
a continuity of sorts,
while technicians,
dressed in studio black,
discuss the sound and lighting rigs
for future television shows.
A long way from turbulence
at the Taf rivermouth,
the boathouse quiet, or
drunken nights at Brown’s Hotel,
but here, at lunch,
I listen for echoes, wonder
at the photos fading on the walls.
Published in 'Chorus and Coda - Littoral Press 2007
MAGGIE FREEMAN - SAMPLE POEM:
The Tower Door
These autumn evenings it's her turn
to lock the tower door. She approaches
from inside, hesitates in the dark
of the stone walls. The door's shut
and through the keyhole the low sun
slices gold into the chamber.
It touches the dust, it spikes
her worn shoes, her skirt
her bodice as she draws closer.
It dissects her hand - skin, veins, bones -
it lights the key -
Published in 'Singing for Mr Bear - littoral press 2014
CLARE HARVEY - SAMPLE POEM:
Swallows
Swallows like midshipmen,
tack across a field of flax,
gybing before the wind,
hawking for flies -
trawling in the hatch.
Buff bellies spraying pollen
instead of salt
as they heel into this heady
sea of flowers -
rise into mackerel sky.
Published in Double Vision by Clare Harvey & Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2015
DEREK ADAMS - SAMPLE POEM:
On the rocks
Hot sunlight sparkles across the Serpentine,
echoing in the bursting bubbles
it catch lights in our Cokes;
contrasted by the dull glint of the ice cubes.
Your words sail, windborne
on the slow grassy air,
they float gently,
over the white plastic glare
of the Plantery Bar table,
"This is beautiful, I could stay here all day".
Ice clinks in your glass.
I bask in your presence,
blissfully unaware of the titanic finality
of this afternoon,
of what lies hidden behind your sunglasses.
Published in 'Everyday Objects and Chance Remarks' - Littoral Press 2005