The work published in Envoi, interesting reviews, and especially the insightful editorial directing readers to particular poems in the issue indicated a sensibility I liked, so I chose three poems to submit for the next issue due out in November. I sent Going Nowhere Slowly, which has since been published in Word Bohemia, Testimony and A Brother for Luka which I'm very fond of but no editor has been to date.
Testimony was chosen by Jan Fortune for publication and my contributor's copy arrived a few weeks ago.
Testimony is one of those poems that is the product of a writing exercise set in a Garden Room Writers meeting. The prompt was a selection of images from newspapers. I chose a photo of the footpath outside a graffiti covered shop. There were some chairs and a cafe table set outside and I began wondering about who might take a seat there amid the traffic fumes and litter. The poem then became about a man who spent his time passing judgement on the people in the paper he read and in his immediate environment. I imagined him reading the graffiti and acting on the urge to respond to what he read there.
Testimony
He has a
favourite spot
outside a café on High Street
No-one calls
in there for
card-boarded
coffee to go
His seat is
a white folding chair
at an un-matching
folding table
He opens his
paper out
ignores the
passing traffic
Sometimes he
looks at the
graffiti on
the doors
He sees who
loves who
who is a
whore
Angels paint
these
messages
while we sleep
He writes
them on the edges
of his
paper, carries copies
folded in
his pocket
for
doomsday.
Maureen
Curran
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