Dickens and Quips - Poetry Pod: Recent Episodes
Dee Dickens
Each week, poet Dee Dickens discusses a collection of poetry, which is her favourite and introduces you to a Line To Make You Go Ooooh!. She also has a guest on to discuss what they have been up to, poetry and otherwise.
Join her as she wanders round a world of poetry that isn't entirely populated by old, white men.
Hello everyone. As is said in the announcement, I have been quite unwell over the last few weeks, so am going to take a rest and go on hiatus until the new year.Thank you so much for all your support so far, I am grateful to each and every one of you.Have a great December and I will see you all in January.Make good choices, write great poetry. email: dickensandquips@gmail.comtwitter: @dickensandquipsinsta: @dickensandquipsDee: twitter: @thepontypoetinsta: @thepontypoetfacebook: facebook.com/deedickenswriter
Welcome to the twelfth episode of Dickens and Quips! This week we have a Hannah Edge special on the show and I shall be reading from her upcoming collection Those Days, These Days along with a bit of Anne Sexton. You can preorder Hannah's ebook here and I will update these show notes when the paperback is available for preorder too! Find Hannah at observeandmuse_ehjee on Insta@edge_hannah on twitter We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.com Prompt for this week is "Football" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.
Welcome to the eleventh episode of Dickens and Quips!
It is a bumper episode this week with some juicy language but it is well worth listening to us go down some amazing poetry rabbit holes.
This week we have Whisky and Beards own Connor Sansby on the show and I shall be reading from Chick by Hannah Lowe
Find Connor at Connor Sansby Wordstuff on Facebook
@whiskybeards on Insta
@whiskybeards on Twitter
Whisky and Beards Publishing on Facebook
Hannah Lowe can be found here
And on twitter @hannahlowepoet
We are at
Twitter: @dickensandquips
Instagram: @dickensandquips
Email: dickensandquips@gmail.com
Prompt for this week is "all bears are gud boisl" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.
Featured collections:
Chick by Hannah Lowe
So You Want To Be a Writer by Charles Bukowski
Welcome to the tenth episode of Dickens and Quips! This week we have Seterah Ebrahimi on the show and I shall be reading from Imagined Sons by Carrie EtterYou can buy Seterah's pamphlet In My Arms hereYou can buy Carrie Etter's Imagined Sons here Carrie Etter can be found here twitter.com/carrie_etter We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.com Prompt for this week is "I wait and wonder" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem. Featured collections/poems:Imagined Sons by Carrie EtterSkeleton by Rosemary McLeish Line that makes you go OOOOOH! Imagined Sons 29: The Friend (Part 4)“I press my lips to each letter of his name”
Welcome to the ninth episode of Dickens and Quips! This week we have Dervla O'Brien on the show and I shall be reading from Cake, Liberty and Other Inexplicable Phenomena by Joe Thomas Find Dervla at DervlaOBrien on InstaDervlaOBrien on Twitter Joe Thomas can be found @Joefishthomas on twitter and insta and Joe Thomas Writer on FacebookYou can buy his book Here We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.com Prompt for this week is "sticky floors" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem. Thank you to Roger Waldron for your poem this week. Invite inviting me round to talk over your world beating veggie lasagna you apologise for the kitchen careful don’t stick to the floor we talk about being married that B&B in Scarborough where they asked if we wanted dessert which turned out to be Pears in sticky Rice Pudding you asked if we’d ever be a pair again you asked if I would likepudding afters etc I declined all 3 careful not to stick to your floor wondering what makes you think like that Featured poets:Paige LewisSarah Kay
Welcome to the eighth episode of Dickens and Quips!This week we have Kate North on the show and I shall be reading from More Than You Were by Christina Thatcher.Find Kate at Kate North, Author on FacebookWebsite www.katenorth.co.ukkatetnorth on TwitterChristina Thatcher can be found @writetoempower.We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.comPrompt for this week is "what does thinking mean?" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Thank you to Camille Brouard for your brilliant poem.Featured collections:
Welcome to the seventh episode of Dickens and Quips!This week we have Sven Stears on the show and I shall be reading from Mostly Hating Tories by Janine Booth.Find Sven at Sven Stears on FacebookSven_Stears on InstaSvenStears on TwitterJanine Booth can be found here.We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.comPrompt for this week is "birds aren't real" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Featured collections:The BreakBeat PoetsMostly Hating ToriesPrompt for this week is Birds aren't real.
Welcome to the sixth episode of Dickens and Quips! This week we have Mithago Craze on the show and I shall be reading from To The Sofa and Back Again by Roath WritersRoath Writers are @roathwriters on Twitter.We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.comPrompt for this week is "Ball Gown" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Featured poems:A Prayer Is a Beautiful Thing-though some may see in it an echoA palimpsest of other, broken beliefs. They may see gold-plated faith or trust misplaced in midnightpower long-goneor worse,corrupt. My prayer-book is differentMine are love-letters to hope,Gratitude to libraries of humanityA patronage. I pray to poetry groups.I pray to book clubs, dedicatedTo slowing downtime,To taking a seam ripper to the straight threads of sentencesand the curved loops of lettersand seeing how the garment was made I pray for their patience.I pray for their keen eyes,Their strong hands flicking pages inThe dead of the night. I congregate in the silenceOf the line-breaksand indents,And as the ministers preachMeaning into every comma,Depth into every unfinished I sign my love-letter with a kissAnd find their words guide me,Map my (spiritual or not) path to theXDervla O'BrienChangeling Fairy child,where did you come from?Is there a kingdom that misses you?Who is the childin the court of the Fairies?She wears your dresses and spins around twirlingwith the Queen of the Elvenas they dance with the moon.Ancient eyed child,who has seen and knows all,your soul windows greenwhen the others have brown.Your hair softly sea waveswhile the others wear springs.Their laughter like starlight,your silence the dawn.Changeling child,who cries in the darkness,you dream of the fairies,the dancing and feastingwith creatures so stunning, their brightnessblinds you. Unable to speakto tell their story, you hidebehind smiles and eyesolder than time.Outsider child,whose sadness drowns hopedon’t you know it will change?You will be the story,the changeling who lived.You will float down stairsthat are chandelier litin a boa of feathers.Embracing your faeness,you will sing out the twilightand welcome the darkness,twirling for the moon.To know that something inside me is still aliveDee DickensBoth available in To The Sofa and Back Again by Roath Writers
Welcome to the fifth episode of Dickens and Quips! This week we have Alice Gretton on the show and I shall be reading from Kumukunda by Kayo Chingonyi.Find Alice at @jalicegretton on Twitter and @alicerosegretton on Insta You can also find her on Facebook @alicegrettonartistKayo Chingonyi is @kayochingonyi on Twitter.We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: dickensandquips@gmail.comPrompt for this week is "beehive" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Featured poems:OCD poem by Neil HilbornThe first time I saw her,Everything in my head went quiet.All the ticks, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don't really get quiet moments.Even in bed, I'm thinking:Did I lock the doors? Yes.Did I wash my hands? Yes.Did I lock the doors? Yes.Did I wash my hands? Yes.But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips..Or the eyelash on her cheek-the eyelash on her cheek-the eyelash on her cheek.I knew I had to talk to her.I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or talking to her..But she loved it.She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times at different times of the day.She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely lock the door eighteen times.I'd always watch her mouth when she talked-when she talked-when she talked-when she talked;when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.At night, she'd lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off... And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.She'd close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.But then... She said I was taking up too much of her time.That I couldn't kiss her goodbye so much because I was making her late for work...When she said she loved me, her mouth was a straight line...When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking...And last week she started sleeping at her mother's place.She told me that she shouldn't have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but...How can it be a mistake that I don't have to wash my hands after I touch her?Love is not a mistake, and it's killing me that she can run away from this and I just can't.I can't go out and find someone new because I always think of her.Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars..And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel...How she turns shower knobs like she opening a safe.How she blows out candles-blows out candles-blows out candles-blows out candles-blows out—….Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.I can't breathe because he only kisses her once—he doesn't care if it's perfect!I want her back so bad...I leave the door unlocked.I leave the lights on.Some Bright Elegance by Kayo ChingonyiFor the screwfaced in good shoes that paperthe walls of dance halls. I have little patience.I say dance, not to be seen but to be free, your feetare made for better things. Feel the bitternessin you lift as it did for a six year old Bojanglestapping a living out of Richmond beer gardensto the delight of a crowd that wasn’t lynchingtoday but laughing at the quickness of the kid.Throw yourself into the thick, emerging purereduced to flesh and bone, nerve and sinew.Your folded arms understand music. Channela packed Savoy Ballroom and slide acrossthe dusty floor as your zoot-suited twentiesself, the feather in your hat from an Ostrich,the swagger in your step from the ochre dustof a West African village. Dance for the timesyou’ve been stalked by store detectivesfor a lady on a bus, for the look of disguston the face if a boy too young to understandwhy he hates but only that he must. Dancefor Sammy, dead and penniless, and for thethousands still scraping a buck as street cornerhoofers who, though they dance for their food,move as if it is only them and the drums, talking.Some Bright Eloquence by Dee DickensAfter Kayo Chingonyi To the black girl sitting in the corner, surrounded by white friends, I see you. I see you wearing a weave that marks you as a fern among English roses I was you. This is for you. You are beautiful as you are. So, dance, without trying to ape the shapes of your contemporaries. move as though the mothers of your mothers taught you what your body is for, unashamed, unembarrassed, a vessel for the universe to play its music. Let your arms embrace the sky as your feet absorb the rhythm of the earth, spin with its axis. I see you, worried about how you look, absorbing words like thicc so you can embrace rather confront the curves your grandmothers gave you. I was you, starving myself so my breasts and backside wouldn’t show in a world that already sees us as inherently sexual, Trying to make myself invisible. You are perfect as you are. So, eat, mango and papaya, and chicken your mates proclaim they’re too white for. Use your hands, and let the juices run down your smiling chin, pity laughing at the ones who have never chewed the meat from a pork chop bone. Savour every bite of rice as wild as you are, know that it was sorted by hand to weed out imperfections. I see you, struggling to accept your hair, using unguents and lotions and straighteners and perms. I was you. Getting perm upon perm, killing my hair to look like the colonisers, anything to fit in, whatever you can to be unnoticed. Please don’t see me, please don’t hurt me, please don’t kill me. You are faultless as you are. So, get your hair cornrowed, feel the fingers of your grandmothers entwine their stories into your tresses, making them yours to pass along. Tell your stories to girl children who are struggling, make sure they understand, they are stunning as they are. I hear you, your voice trembling as you claim your space in the world. I was you, whispering into the void of my mirror, hairbrush microphone, falsetto with fear. Fear of being heard, fear of being noticed, fear of the ridicule that comes with breathing, fear of the pain of taking up room, fear of being here. So, sing, let your soul resonate, release the pain, the joy, the sheer immediacy of being alive. Open yourself to be a conduit for the ancestors, let your song come from a choir of colour, let crowned black cranes burst fully formed from your chest. To the black girl sitting in the corner, surrounded by white friends, I say this to you. You are made for better things. Take them. Embrace them. Be them.
Welcome to the fourth episode of Dickens and Quips!
This week we have Claudia Volpe on the show and I shall be reading from River Hymns by Tyree Daye..
Find Claudia at Claudia Volpe on Facebook
@_claudnine_ on Instagram
We are at
Twitter: @dickensandquips
Instagram: @dickensandquips
Email: dickensandquips@gmail.com
Prompt for this week is "chicken" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.
Featured poems:
I Like It Like That
You turned the lights off
saying you like it like that
and I wonder
what’s there to like
if I don’t see what
I’m touching,
kissing,
holding,
if I don’t see where my skin ends and yours begins
and I can’t connect the dots on your stomach,
then how do I know
what’s my favourite constellation
to spot when we lay together
in this private garden
of pillows
and blankets
and more pillows because
you like it like that.
You said
You want your body on a soft cloud
to follow your head
all the times it goes up there
and doesn’t come down any more;
You said
it’s so far you can never reach it,
always an inch away from your grasp,
from your heart,
From all the do’s and the don’ts
And all the pros and cons lists you make -
Hanging around your room
because you like it like that.
You said
they remind you of every decision you had to face,
of what’s best for you
but hurting others;
and happiness has a price
sometimes -
But, darling -
I like it like that.
I say
I’m ready to pay any price
for your happiness
and your lists
and your clouded head
and the pillows where you rest your face at night
and the blankets we hide under
I say
Leave on all the lights,
Because I like it like that.
I say
I want to see the curve of your smile
Right before I hold your face,
kiss your freckles,
touch every single inch of you,
and make you
my everlasting supernova.
Claudia Volpe
She Tells Her Love
She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And put out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
Robert Graves
Chicken and Bun
After Tyree Daye
“chop the chicken,
just so”. My auntie Veronica
said the bones added to
the flavour.
When she died, I
could only ever
picture her in
sunday gloves and hat.
Until I cooked her curry.
I remembered
the way the sun reflected
off the strands of hair
fighting to stay
in the tight bun at the nape
of her neck.
The way her hands
wafted steam from
burned sugar and tomato
towards us.
How much pepper
we needed, a whispered secret.
I remember her laugh
was a waterfall,
a river,
a splash of water on
hot oil.
Dee Dickens
River Hymns and more information about Tyree Daye
Prompt for this week is Fire Extinguisher
Welcome to the third episode of Dickens and Quips!
This week we have Christina Thatcher on the show and I shall be reading from Audre Lorde
Find Christina at @jwritetoempower on Twitter and Insta
I'm almost certain that Audre Lorde doesn't have a Twitter, but you can read more about her here.
We are at
Twitter: @dickensandquips
Instagram: @dickensandquips
Email: dickensandquips@gmail.com
Prompt for this week is "fire extinguisher" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.
Featured poem:
Who Said It Was Simple
BY AUDRE LORDE
There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march
discussing the problematic girls
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes
a waiting brother to serve them first
and the ladies neither notice nor reject
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.
But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as sex
and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.
Bad Things Are Going To Happen by Dee Dickens
After Ellen Bass
Bad things are going to happen.
You will get your heart broken
by someone who will deny they
ever held it in their hands.
Bad things are going to happen.
You will have to deal with idiots
who think coronavirus is caused
by 5G,
or the ‘Lady Chemicals’ that are released
when someone’s tongue
knows its way around your clit.
Bad things are going to happen.
Avril Lavigne will actually die.
Again.
Britney Spears will murder her clone.
The moon landing will be proved to be real.
The moon will be proved to be real.
911 will have been an inside job.
Barak will admit he is Kenyan.
And we will have nothing to talk about;
except art, and music and poetry and
we will have nothing to do;
except write poetry and paint and
sing. Sing. Sing.
And love.
Bad things are going to happen.
But there is always love.
Addicts Die a Thousand Deaths by Christina Thatcher.
Christina read from
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz
Line that makes you go OOOH from A Litany For Survival by Audre Lorde.
Prompt for this week is movement of people
Welcome to the second episode of Dickens and Quips!
This week we have Joe Thomas on the show and I shall be reading from How to Carry Fire by Christina Thatcher.
Find Sam at @joefishthomas on Twitter and Insta
Christina Thatcher is @writetoempower on Twitter.
We are at
Twitter: @dickensandquips
Instagram: @dickensandquips
Email: dickensandquips@gmail.com
Prompt for this week is "fire extinguisher" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.
Featured poems:
An Improper Kindness
Worth Telling
What If
All available in How to Carry Fire by Christina Thatcher.
Supermarket by Dee Dickens
I’m on the floor in the grocery store
howling.
Great globbing
sobbing
snotty trails on my jumper.
Everyone has been so nice.
It’s just that
my brave face is so damn tired.
My arms ache from wiping their tears.
My throat burns with words unsaid.
I make tea and hope they
don't taste the salt water.
Supermarket guy comes over to ask,
Is everything alright?
No, supermarket guy, everything is not alright.
I want Yorkshire pudding,
and I can’t find the batter mix.
He’s smiling, but his eyes say confused,
there's a tilt of a head
from a passing old woman telling me
I should just make my own.
I can’t remember how.
I don’t know the ingredients.
I can’t focus on anything
but the emptiness of my belly.
Except that I need to have
Yeast.
To know that something inside me is still alive.
Scrimshaw by Eley Williams
Imaginary friend: by Joe Thomas
I.
I’m an imaginary friend
that’s been thought into existence
or maybe you wished hard enough.
I don’t know. You tell me.
I’m the madman who fell from the sky,
and before anyone says it, I’m not him.
Mr love of my life and Mr man of my dreams
aren’t nearly chaotic enough.
Mr Right’s entrance runs too smoothly
to come down to Earth with a crash.
How boring.
No, I’m not here to be your first choice
but I know what
“I like you…
a lot…
like more than a friend…
but not…
you get me?”
means when I hear it.
Don’t worry. It worked.
I’ve been doing this
long enough to know
we wouldn’t be here
talking right now if it hadn’t.
II.
If you’re interested
here are the rules.
Take food as a given.
If you stalk my social media,
if I find a heart react
on a selfie I took with my cat
because I’m in the picture
you’re doing it wrong.
If you scroll past my pictures,
“Oh my god!
He’s so cute!
I LOVE him!”
and you didn’t mean the dog
but come out with “I want in,”
you’re brave, I’ll give you that much…
If you try to make me choose
“Who is it going to be?
Friend 1
Or friend 2?”
when ‘universal’
by definition means:
“BOTH OF YOU.”
I’m sorry,
it’s not going to work out.
III.
In return, I can only give you a hug
one you can still feel long after it’s finished
one that clings on and will not let you go.
If I do it right, it should squeeze
every “You’re not as good as you think
you are” thought until they pop
I write you a pretentious poem
which, at the end of the day,
is just a glorified shitpost
that I crafted to look like a love letter
because I don’t know how else to say it.
And yes, I do it better than most
of your real friends ever could
We keep our streak going.
We let months go by
between conversations
which last for two messages,
an unspoken “You didn’t have to answer
but thank you for coming back.”
No, being left on read is not rude,
we haven’t run out of small talk
It’s an electric “Until next time
Love from an imaginary friend
who was lucky enough to come to life.”
Prompt for this week is Fire Extinguisher
Welcome to the first ever episode of Dickens and Quips!
This week we have Sam Tate on the show and I shall be reading from My Darling from the Lions by Rachel Long.
Find Sam at @samtatepoet on Facebook, Twitter and Insta
Rachel Long is @rachelnalong on Twitter. #
We are at
Twitter: @dickensandquips
Instagram: @dickensandquips
Email: dickensandquips@gmail.com
Prompt for this week is "I dance in my own head" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.
Featured poems:
Night Vigil
I was a choir-girl. Real angel
-lightning-faced and giant for my age.
Mum let us stay up late
if we went with her to night vigil.
It started at midnight, a time too exciting to fathom.
How the minute and the hour stood to attention!
During Three Members' Prayer, my sister fell asleep
under a chair, so she never knew
how I sang. Or how I fell silent
when the evangelist with smiling eyes said in his pulpit voice
Here, child.
Had she woken, I would have told her, Sleep, sleep!
so she'd never know Smiling Eyes
also meant teeth,
or that he had blown candle for hands,
with which he led me down an incensed corridor,
and I followed.
by Rachel Long from My Darling from the Lions
Orion’s Belt
We sat in the pub,
surrounded by poets,
conjoined from hip to knee.
We walked, smiling,
swapping stories of
ridiculous siblings, giggling.
You showed me how
to spot Orion.
By his belt
and disco shoulders, you said.
Not sure if it was
invitation or starlight
in your eyes, I left.
On the train home,
Orion mocked me from his
celestial dance floor.
by Dee Dickens
A Little Closer to the Edge
Young enough to believe nothing
will change them, they step, hand-in-hand,
into the bomb crater. The night full
of black teeth. His faux Rolex, weeks
from shattering against her cheek, now dims
like a miniature moon behind her hair.
In this version the snake is headless — stilled
like a cord unraveled from the lovers’ ankles.
He lifts her white cotton skirt, revealing
another hour. His hand. His hands. The syllables
inside them. O father, O foreshadow, press
into her — as the field shreds itself
with cricket cries. Show me how ruin makes a home
out of hip bones. O mother,
O minutehand, teach me
how to hold a man the way thirst
holds water. Let every river envy
our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body
like a season. Where apples thunder
the earth with red hooves. & I am your son.
BY OCEAN VUONG
Poetry Foundation
Helios
You are yellow;
The colour of sunshine,
reflecting off the white of my skin.
It’s… blinding.
The sun shining,
finding the milky-way whites of my eyes.
The light was drawn
into the dark stone well
of my pupils –
and the colour is
muted.
What was block yellow,
bold and defiant against the darkness,
casting shadows
like an excorcist –
is, now, less.
The shade has become opaque;
I can see it,
blurring the factory settings
of my optical input.
I can see through it.
And I have to wonder
what palet the world would take
if you took away your filter.
Would my eyes sing out in monochrome?;
Could I ever grow to know
the pastel kiss of flowers?;
The violent strokes of neon?;
The duality of sky and sea,
as my feet softly dig
into the golden freckles
of the beach?
Or, would I be resigned to graphite?;
My sight surrendered
to the two-hundred and fifty-six shades of grey?
Along the left bone of my hip,
‘LOVE WINS’ is tattooed
in the colours of pride.
The yellow ‘E’ is fading;
slowly disappearing from my skin.
Tell me, will the colour ever stand out again?
By Sam Tate
Line that makes you go OOOOH!
"Girl, you're the blackest you ever might be in here"
From Communion by Rachel Long
Next week, How To Carry Fire by Christina Thatcher
Just over a week to go before we go live with the podcast and I am ridiculously excited. This trailer tells you what you can expect from the show and how you can get involved.
For accessibility reasons, where I can, I will be putting scripts and stuff in these show notes. I am passionate about paying people for their labour so will not be able to get transcription done for whole episodes for now.
Follow us on @dickensandquips on Twitter and Insta for more updates and if you want to get in touch, email is dickensandquips@gmail.com
TRAILER
Hello, hello and welcome to Dickens and Quips, the podcast that takes the Poe faced out of poetry. I’m your host, Dee Dickens and I invite you to wander round the world of the written word with me while I show you that poetry isn’t all old or dead white men.
I’m here to give room for marginalised voices to speak and will be doing so weekly, with the help of a guest poet. You won’t have heard of most of them, but that is the point. There is a universe of amazing poets out there being actual superheroes and I will be helping them fly into your lives.
Each week I will be telling you about a poetry collection I’ve had my nose in and reading you my favourite from it. There will be a chance for you to hear writing from guests along with their favourites poems too.
Lines that make you go OOOOOH is pretty self explanatory really. There are lines that hit you right in the feels and make you wish you had written them. I will be sharing a new one each week.
There will also be a weekly prompt where you can join in the fun and you don’t have to think of yourself as a poet to do so. My favourite each week will be read out too.
First episode will be on the 14th of September with poet Sam Tate and I will be reading from the collection My Darling from the Lions by Rachel Long. Going to be amazing so don’t forget to subscribe and follow us on Twitter and Insta. We’re @dickensandquips on both.
Have a great week and try to make good choices. If you can’t, well, that’s what writing poetry is for.
This is a placeholder while I sort out doing some actual content! This is a sea shanty I wrote for my dissertation about my fear of drowning because of the inherited trauma of being descended from enslaved people.
Co vocals and beautiful harmonies by Anna Fruen to whom I shall always be grateful.
Credit is also due to Florence Welch for the inspiration from Sky Full of Song.
Find me on twitter at @thepontypoet
Poem transcript
Mother of My Mothers - A Shanty
After Florence Welch
Oh mother of my mothers
I feel you in the storm
I reach for you and
Know that for
Tonight I’m not alone.
The father of my fathers
Is lost beneath the waves
While the man with gun
And bible wants to tell me
Jesus saves.
And I was sitting at my window
Gazing out across the sea
And in my grief I swear that
You were looking back at me
Whispering the music
Of a land so far away
Calling me back to a place
I always want to stay.
Mother of my mothers
No matter where I roam
I will always look upon the sea
And wish that I was home.
Lying on the ocean floor
With seaweed in my hair
Singing with the sirens
songs of love and songs of care.
Hand in hand
I’m so frightened now.
I’m scared to die.
Pull me down
Where we all drown
Leave me where I lie.
And I can tell that you are with me
As the storm begins to break
When the wind is wrapping round me
And my heart begins to ache
It feels like something’s gone
That I never got to grasp
was lost down on the seabed
In one last choking gasp.
And silence is a virtue
Or so I have been told
So we’ll be oh so quiet
In the deep and in the cold
And when the ships are gone
On rocks they’ve run aground
We’ll drift up to the surface
Where our songs of love abound
Mother of my mothers
No matter where I roam
I will always look upon the sea
And wish that I was home.
Lying on the ocean floor
With seaweed in my hair
Singing with the sirens
songs of love and songs of care.
take my hand
I’m so frightened now.
I’m scared to die.
Pull me down
Where we all drown
Leave me where I lie.
I thought I was flying
But maybe I’m dying now
I thought I was swimming
But my light is dimming now
I thought I was sinking
But I am clear thinking now
Mother of my mothers
No matter where I roam
I will always look upon the sea
And wish that I was home.
Lying on the ocean floor
With seaweed in my hair
Singing with the sirens
songs of love and songs of care.
Hold my hand
I’m not frightened now.
Not afraid to die.
Pull me down
Where we all drown
Leave me where I lie.