Watercolour by Colin Thom
Reading all the submissions for our anthology on the theme of ´water´ took a great deal of time and careful consideration. Marc, John, Sarah and I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the poems and making the final selection for this publication was no small task.
We have each chosen a poem which particularly stood out for us.
Footnotes to a river By Cindy Botha 1. Pine trees are confirmation that darkness clings erratically. The river-gums, on the other hand, are pale as thighs. 2. A streambed knuckled with pebbles. 3. In conversation with the river, you will not match its fluency. 4. Bellbird, stitchbird, waxeye, plover, swallow. The gas-blue flare of a single kingfisher. 5. A waterfall is water ¦ rock ¦ air in exactly equal parts. 6. Here, dogs emerge dripping from their peaty plash and wallow, mouths open as lilies. 7. From the thickets, cicada static. 8. Stare at the surface until your eyes overflow with dazzle, and a thousand small fish look back at you. 9. By midday, the river is polished greenstone. 10. (i) Longfin eels loiter in the backwater. (ii) Chicken livers make good eel bait. But if you lie on the bank in the warm afternoon and watch, you might leave empty-handed, your head full of ripple and quiver. 11. Emerald dragonflies feast on a rabble of gnats. 12. Bullrush, flax, floating fern, ribbonwood, swamp-grass, mangrove, sedge. 13. The river will outrun you, always. 14. A half-drowned bee will climb to the tip of your thumb, shiver the wet from its wings. 15. In 2006, an unprecedented spate took the footbridge. All night it boomed through dreams, chilled pillows with spray. 16. Shrugging off branches, the moon reminds pooled elvers of their path to the sea. 17. Night drops from the trees, adds its dark tassels to the river. Previously published in the Ink Sweat & Tears webzine by IS&T Publishing,11/03/2022
I choose “Footnotes To A River” by Cindy Botha. I love this poem because it’s clever and original and whimsical and each line is a delicious little vignette and I can read it again and again and each time it makes me smile and wonder.
-Marc Brimble
The Summer You Went Away to Washington
By Niall M Oliver
Every time I looked at the sky, it was as grey
as every picture of Abraham Lincoln I’d ever seen,
and the rain streamed incessantly down my window panes.
This isn’t a metaphor to explain
how I was feeling without you—
it really did just piss down the whole summer,
and I felt like crying every day.
One poem that really stands out to me is Niall M. Oliver’s “The Summer You Went Away to Washington.” I’ve come back to it a couple of times and each time I love its bluntness. It cozies up to the warm blanket of love poetry only to toss off the lyric and take the cold naked.
-John Tessitore
Underwillow
By Emmaline O´Dowd
Underwillow’s a cool house with thinning thatch
autumn’s started to unravel. Outside
the sun, still strong and mellow, warms shallows
where, patterned like riverbed pebbles,
minnows hover in reflected blue
above the gravel. On the river’s slow mirror
each shed willow-leaf’s a yellow stitch
through two sheer fabrics, water and air
where trees, rocks, swans, myself, find doubles.
A place where clouds and reeds collide.
I am drawn to poetry that evokes in me a strong sense of place. In “Underwillow” by Emmaline O´Dowd, she paints a cosy picture of a thatch-roofed house by a river. You can almost hear it bubbling as the poet orients themself amidst the serene landscape.
-Sarah Jeannine Gawthrop
Untitled By R.C. Thomas the flow and the ebb and the duck of the platypus Previously published on Heliosparrow, 11/7/21 and in “Faunistics”.
I love haiku and R.C. Thomas´ poem stood out for me initially because of its playfulness. On my first reading, I was delighted to come across the platypus, which I had not been expecting, and I enjoy the clever wordplay of ´duck´. I have read this haiku many times and I think that the soft sonics of “ the flow and the ebb and …” reflect our water theme so well.
-Claire Thom
Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of the anthology so far and has also taken time to write a review and help spread the word. We are raising lots of pennies for Water.org, which are such a fantastic organisation doing vital work around the world.
You can purchase a copy here.
As always, stay well and stay creative.
Claire
Beautiful poetry
But I have never seen any Call for Submission
I don’t know what the competition was like - but this is a great choice!