Monthly Archives: January 2021

This poem by our member Charlie Bell was selected for and published in Folio #74 in 2020.

Google Scans

The chambers of my heart,
the channels of my bowel,
the highways of my blood –
intricate, detailed, ghostly shadows.

Body turned inside out, flesh and bone
Revealed in street view.
Rotate 360°, no-one is at home.
Click and zoom in.
I am in the gaps you cannot see.

On a map you can’t smell the grass,
sense the mud, feel the cold,
or appreciate a stunning landscape.
You don’t see the badger killing the hedgehog or the hawk
catching the mouse.

A few days ago, our treasurer Phil Vernon was invited onto BBC Kent’s Dominic King Show, to talk about our Open Poetry Competition, about the Society, and about the role of poetry during these strange COVID times. If you’d like to listen, the segment is from 2 hours 11 minutes, to 2 hours 24 minutes in the BBC Sounds clip here.

This poem by member John Arnold was selected for our 2020 Folio # 74.

Sevenoaks Graffiti

It had all gone awry…
Down the street, I stopped
to refuel and have a piss.

The graffiti above the urinal told me:
There’s nothing for you here in Sevenoaks.
Leave now! So I took the A21,

drove south on autopilot
down the length of a late summer’s evening,
till road ran out – as always – in Hastings:

its cliffs, its flint-faced cottages,
its tubby fishing boats, its gentle sea
basked in a dwindling light.

I bought fish and chips and a Coke,
without being sneered at, shunned
or turned away;

and knew at once that somewhere
in this achingly beautiful world
was a place I would not have to leave.

This poem by Mary Gurr was commended in our members’ competition in 2020, and published in Folio #74.

Still Life with Peaches and Avocado

In memoriam Maurice Weidman

Cross-hatching their ripeness,
dimpling the rugged pear rising
like an island, a hardened hill of lava
ominous and black amid the peachy lush.
Remembering Mr Weidman, eyes sharp
for the structure of a curve, the countless
still moments that make up a line.
            I drew him once, engrossed
in someone’s apple, picked out the light
reflected on his arm and on his brow
against the dark white studio wall in shadow,
and his face, eyes fixed forward, hand raised
in full engagement with the fruit,
in his element, harvesting.

Something special to look forward to!

On January 19th. at 8 o’clock we have our annual poetry feast, celebrating 3 of our own members’ writing. It is always enjoyable to hear a selection of poems by the same writer, as it illuminates their identity as poets so much more than the single workshopped poems, and it’s great to see how some of those poems have changed since we first heard them. There will also be plenty of writing that is new to us.

This month we are inviting into our homes Marian Christie, Sonia Lawrence and Graham Mummery. The evening will be divided into halves, with each poet reading twice. What better way could there be to spend a winter night?

Happy New Year to you all.

Vita Sackville-West, our first patron.

This poem by our Treasurer, Phil Vernon, was awarded first prize in our members’ competition in 2019, and was published in Folio #73.

Poetry after Auschwitz
‘Poetry is pointless – like kicking a stone’ – overheard at a poetry reading

At the start and the end of this long, straight road:
a silent child, a house in flames,
a leafless tree, an empty town

He kicks a stone to watch it leap
and skitter on the flattened clay,
then slow and stall and go to ground

Along the forest edge stand those
he’s failed to save: he sings his song;
his unknown patrons hear no sound

and yet he feels their silence deep
beneath his feet, and sees beyond
the tree, the child, the house, the town