Category Archives: Alumni

Two poems by Susan Flower: “Homecoming” and “Bolsover Castle”.

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HOMECOMING

I take the Romany’s sprigged heather,
tuck its pink tight buds curled like
baby fists tight as a talisman,
blue with longing, into my bag.

I am pierced mid-flight
by a hint of traveller she sees
within – an Irish woman
on the grandmother side,

Ellen Glancy unschooled, catholic
in tastes and religion,
pawned her soul for potatoes
that lay rotting, bleeding
into darkened sod.

Her pilgrimage to England
and Alfred, then retracing steps
to Enniskillen for the wedding,
returning to peg washing
not in a whipped north-easterly
which cut the souls.

Back across grey waters
fretful and choppy, till her own
broke a tidal wave, her firstborn.
Homesick for emerald patches,
a mercurial sky tilting meniscus,
struggling for freedom.

Iron rain lashes my face,
her slashed smile a rent petticoat.
Merging the troubles one with another,
I take her hand in mine,
it lies still but warm, without
need for words.

*****

BOLSOVER CASTLE

I stride the battlements; crenelated Portland stone,
Sheer five hundred feet below grassy fields.

A twenty-mile fish-eye panorama of peaks;
Arkwright’s Sutton Hall, Bess’s glass Hardwick.

Beyond receding greens to softened hues, greys
Through anthracite, slate, to a sooty-blue meniscus

The wind moans the miles, traps whispers in
An ancient avenue of limes to the riding stables, keep.

I descend eroded limestone steps, scoured clean
By tides of serfs; stranded in landlocked Derbyshire.

by Susan Flower (alumna 2010-2011)

The Black Path free literary event, Wed 23 October.

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Don’t forget that there will be a free reading of work from The Black Path by last year’s students on the MA Creative Writing course.

The reading will take place in MC0025, 12.00 – 1.00, Wednesday 23 October (2013). Work will include poems, flash fiction and extracts from longer pieces.

Everyone welcome.

“Monkey Creates”, a poem by Nick Beaumont.

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Monkey Creates

The universe is an omelette.
An omelette, or maybe a quiche…
well anyway, the important thing is
it all started with an egg.

An egg with a bloody great crack
down the middle that fizzles
with dark energy. One day, it splinters
open from one too many bangs

on the celestial frying pan,
spattering globules of sticky blackness
across time and space.
The shell pirouettes away, leaving

a yolk that would have fallen if it wasn’t
for the lack of gravity, but instead
hangs in the gaping silence,
a black, undulating mass of chaos.

The mass is snoring.
But it doesn’t snore for long. Monkey wakes
and scratches his furry arse.
It’s pretty close in here he thinks,

so he lifts up his Monkey paws,
and pushes away the squishy black space yolk.
Above him he creates the great
celestial jungle, and below the waters

of the celestial rapids. He swipes
whole paw-fulls of oozing jelly
and skilfully fashions the
banana tree galaxy, the climbing frame

solar system, even the delicate
patterns of the tree vine constellations.
Exhausted, Monkey rests
on the great primordial rubber tyre,

ideally flicking fleas into the cosmos,
where they explode in soft plumes
of orange and purple, becoming
spiralling galaxies and unexplored nebulas.

By Nick Beaumont (alumnus 2010-2011).

The Black Path – MA students publish their first anthology.

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blackpath1
Students on the 2012-2013 year of the MA in Creative Writing have published an impressive paperback anthology of their own work.

The Black Path 1 (a second collection is nearing completion) comprises poems, flash fiction, short stories and novel extracts written by the students during the course of their studies.

What’s special about the book is that the students took the publishing initiative themselves, building on what they had learned during the MA. All the writing, collation, editing, design, typesetting and marketing is student-driven. Overall Editor is Shirley Bell, already a well-published poet.

The Black Path 1 is 132 pages long and can be bought from Amazon at £6.58.

A reading by contributors to the anthology will take place in the University on Wednesday, 23 October, 12.00 – 1.00 in room MC0025. More details to follow.

Contributors: Shirley Bell, Cassandra Cash, Stephen Blessett, Laura Clipson, Tina Daley, Stewart Norvill, Muayyad Elwaheidi, Jennifer Fytelson, Joel Leverton, Ian Turner, Matt Ellis and Rosemary Temple.