Excited to be going to the launch of Rhianna Levi’s poet laureate collection at Script Haven in Worcester today. It starts at 4pm. Would be great to see you there. More details available from Black Pear Press
Tag Archives: Black Pear Press
ClearView at Covent Garden
193 steps,
Covent Garden tube,
waiting for a lift…
and there’s a ClearView poster
asking One Line Or Two?
It would have been wonderful
had there been ClearView
when we planned babies.
Imagine the waiting
endless waiting,
waiting for missing,
missing the month.
Two days late, three, four,
five, six?
Day seven—blood.
For sure, today
there’s the same flood
of disappointment,
sadness
for a child who will never be.
A baby so real, that he or she
with a mop of dark hair
on a small, neat head
is more than a line on a ClearView test.
193 steps
Covent Garden tube,
waiting for a lift.
‘Life’s Wonders’ (Black Pear Press, 2023)
Autumn
Winter comes stealthing…it’s 5am dark,
silent and chill; August hangs her red head.
A wet summer trails to an autumn, stark,
the seasons have become confused, misled.
In lightening sky, dark sunfree clouds leer,
the pensive garden, still, holds its slow breath
in blowsy brash overblown garb this year.
Scents of autumn waft a whispered caress,
as songbirds want to wake us earlier
the moon sets in the black night to stir us.
Morning dew drenches noble courtiers,
who with the sovereign sun will shake us.
Cool autumn day you stretch, yawn, sleepy grey,
and we must get up and join in the fray.
© Polly Stretton 2022
Girl’s Got Rhythm, (Black Pear Press, 2012)
Haunting
A gothic tale from ‘The Alchemy of 42’
A Transylvanian melody chimes through the night.
The air is still and warm, there is no trace of light.
He haunts the forest glades and the castle where she lies,
she strains to hear his footsteps, her hopes can’t be disguised,
she knows he’s coming for her, yet no fear shows in her eyes.
She wants to keep this castle, comprehends he can’t resist,
knew it from All Hallows’ when he stole a hard-pressed kiss,
knew it by her father’s pale and trembling lips,
knew it from her mother’s stark forbidding hiss.
She enjoys his sense of style, his dark and brooding brow,
his high and sculpted cheekbones, his skin white-cold, ice-sallow;
in his cape of burnished black, he is the maniac
the villagers with their garlic fear and dread.
She smiles at the thought of the crosses they have wrought
to stop him ascending to her bed.
She discerns her soul will wince when she hears the chimes, since,
when discord climbs the stairs, he’ll try to claim her for his own.
The scent of juniper, aromatic, spiced, sincere,
is the harbinger she’s counted on; dreamt about for years.
A rap upon her door, her pulse races, her mind roars,
she plans to keep this castle and will do evermore.
He leans in close towards her, his cape as soft as zephyrs,
it sweeps her pure white nightgown as he slowly travels down;
his breath, a mist of insight, strokes her furrowed frown.
His teeth glint in the moonlight, from her, he’ll get no swift flight,
she arches, plunges in the knife…
He’ll not take the castle from her, not deny her of her home,
but of one thing she is certain, it won’t be far he’ll roam.
The haunting now commences and continues till the dawn,
she licks her lips: a killing, and legends to be spawned.
Shared with dVerse Poets (2015)
The Alchemy of 42, Black Pear Press (2020)
Bats in the Forest
Flittermice weave over reeking moonshine
cross-eyed and woozy on rising fumes
chase paper-like moths through the dense night-time
jaws snap away to roosts the moths to consume
a charge for the moth from a hot light bulb
a scorch a burned bum a lucky escape
but echolocation doesn’t see the bat dulled
dinner tonight is in his mouth draped
the reek of the moonshine the rise of vapour
has chemically altered the mammal’s ability
he weaves and he wavers his wings act as tracers
but the dread-filled moth makes a dart of agility
another lucky escape
‘Chatterton’ – Prologue
He learned to read from a black-letter Bible,
was thought a backward boy, no scholar.
Lonely, close and comely,
poor boy was deemed a dullard.
He forged his first letters
from illuminated capitals;
cutting consonants, reviewing verbs,
giving names to nouns.
Memory on memory make his story,
they talk of it still sighing their sorrows.
Merciless London, no crumb offered,
the baker rebuffed him for begging a loaf.
Chatterton (Black Pear Press, 2014)
Available as an eBook
Boxing Hare
On a bleak November day, here’s an Englyn–a Welsh poetry form–from my very first collection of poetry Girls Got Rhythm to remind us that spring will come along soon…😄
Boxing, racy, hatted hare, mad in March, much startled air. Take care! Long ears and nostrils full flare, strong limbs, swift, free, outrun scare. Polly Stretton © (Girl's Got Rhythm, Black Pear Press, 2012)
Just to clarify, for the purists out there, this is an Englyn unodl union. The straight one-rhymed englyn. This englyn form (there are at least eight different versions) consists of four lines of ten, six, seven and seven syllables. The seventh, eighth or ninth syllable of the first line introduces the rhyme and this is repeated on the last syllable of the other three lines. The last syllable of the first line is rhymed with a syllable early in the second.
Letter Writing in the Moonlight
For National Poetry Day 2021, a poem from my recent collection.
‘Letter Writing in the Moonlight’ was written for the Worcestershire Poet Laureate Nina Lewis’s 2017 project ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ in which Worcester UK poets were matched with Worcester USA poets and created ‘call and response’ poems.
Letter Writing in the Moonlight
Beneath the apple tree
all is still.
Night, as dark as her lover,
veils the lush grass;
bramble and thistle
scratch, inscribe the ground.
A mist hovers,
loathe to leave the river,
low down in the depths of the garden
where mud oozes
and the odour of damp
settles.
The bench is warm,
as graffitied as her heart.
Love holds her
like the mist—all pervasive—
toads and crickets mock,
‘Write’.
A moonbeam strikes
through cloud.
Clouds steal onwards
and soon the lawn
is shown in a puddle of silver light.
She puts pen to paper.
From Growing Places (Black Pear Press, 2021)
Thank you, Carrie, and thank you, Beth
It’s always good to see a review from over the pond, and extra special when it’s a friend well met years ago when I first started posting my poetry online. This review for Growing Places is from Carrie Rubin, who’s just published the third in her Benjamin Oris series about a man of science who faces otherworldly situations, The Bone Elixir, read all three, they’re great reads.
So good to see other reviews of Growing Places coming through, the latest from “Mad Hatter Reviews” written by Beth O’Brien, you can see it below.
A Mad Hatter Review
Hot on the heels of Carrie’s review came another, this one from the fabulous Beth O’Brien for Mad Hatter Reviews. Here’s an extract from Beth’s review of Growing Places:
“From the child’s understanding of her parents, to the closeness of two sisters, the poems establish a firm ground of loyalty. ‘Her girls’ is one of my favourite poems of the collection, which opens with the lines ‘We do not share blood, / we share memories’. These memories are of an inseparable nature, of makeup experiments and the ‘hottest, burniest’ holidays. Stretton’s poetry seems to speak delight from the page, the short lines and rhymes making it a joy to read as well as feel.
“Of course, place is very important in this collection, which is divided into sections accordingly. As part one, ‘Malvern’ moves to part two, ‘Malvern Hills’ we escape into nature, silence, slopes, and echoes. The short poems in this section are like bursts of memory, contained like ‘Moonlight in Jars’, held up one by one to show off something else that is beautiful.” Read Beth’s full review here.
So excited…
I’m getting more apprehensive / excited with each passing day! It’s the launch of ‘Growing Places’ at 4pm GMT on Sunday 22 August, a joint book launch with Tony Judge who’s launching his children’s book ‘Lost’. You’re invited to come along and can find the link to the online event by clicking here on the day.
I’m delighted to say that Charley Barnes and Nigel Kent will be my guests and Tony has guests too, plus there will be Q&A sessions.
If you’d like to pre-order one or both of these beautiful books, go to: Black Pear Press where you can save a little on P&P by ordering both books together.
Hope to see you on Sunday 😄
‘The Earth is a Bookcase’ and ‘Panopticon’ launch today
So looking forward to this dual book launch this afternoon – come along if you can, details on the Black Pear Press website and Facebook event page.
Update re Launch of ‘Pressed Flowers’
A wonderful, touching launch evening with all the poets who wrote for Pressed Flowers. This anthology of poems is a gorgeously uplifting collection of poetry from poets in Worcestershire and beyond. Pressed Flowers, collated by Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2019 Charley Barnes in cahoots with Polly Stretton of Black Pear Press is full of joy and beauty.
Get your copy of Pressed Flowers direct from Black Pear Press
Latest Edition—Girl’s Got Rhythm
The latest edition of my collection of poems Girl’s Got Rhythm is out. It has a gorgeous new cover, thank you Black Pear Press, and a different layout.
It was delightful to be given the opportunity to update Girl’s Got Rhythm, a collection of my poems first published 2012. Like many poets, as I read and re-read my work I can’t resist tinkering to improve them – it’s not often that I’d be bold enough to call a poem ‘finished’ – though as some will recognise, lots of them are finished as they form on the page.
I hope you enjoy reading my collection – it was wonderful when the first edition was published, and I’ve loved creating this revision.
It’s available here. See links below.
UK postage:
Non-UK postage:
Chatterton—A Series Of Poems
‘Chatterton’ is a series of poems about young and starving poet in a garret, Thomas Chatterton. He was 17 years old. Did he commit suicide or not? You decide.
My series of poems, in an elegant pamphlet (thanks to Black Pear Press), is from the viewpoints of those who loved or were somehow influenced by ‘the beautiful boy’. I imagine them gathered around the foot of his deathbed, remembering and commenting on his life. Each individual, from his mother to his doctor to various poets, have their own poem about him.
I’ve loved the Henry Wallis painting – shown on the front cover of the pamphlet – since I studied the pre-Raphaelites many moons ago – it’s the inspiration for the series. And I was asked to do a potted history of Thomas Chatterton – it appears in the final pages.
There’s a limited first edition of 50 copies and I’ve signed each one (phew!).
Now you can get your copy here. Because it’s a limited edition, it’s available only here or direct from my publishers Black Pear Press. Also because it’s a limited edition and not available on Amazon, we’re missing the usual review facility so we’d be very grateful if you’d leave a review in the comment box below. Thank you.
UK postage:
Non-UK postage:
‘Chatterton’ will be performed by writers at 42 Worcester 30th April 2014, at Coach House Writers 1st May 2014 and by writers from Worcester Writers’ Circle 12th June 2014.
Award winning novelist Carrie Rubin said, ‘I finished Chatterton… really wonderful, and I enjoyed learning about this tragic lad. The poem by “The Mother” about broke my heart… only Polly could get me to read a collection of themed poems. And I’m so glad I did!’
Reviews are welcome in the comments or ‘Leave a Reply’ box below.
journalread 