Next stop on the Poetry Pop Up Tour


I’m excited to bring you something a bit different today. Writer and poet Sarah Salway has been inspiring me ever since I first discovered she read my blog (that’s how we first connected — I even interviewed her back in May 2009.) Sarah is Canterbury Laureate and Royal Literature Fund Fellow at the London School of Economics (I know, right? She’s a proper writer!). She’s written three novels and a collection of short stories, and as if that’s not enough, Sarah is also a wickedly perceptive and luminous poet. It’s this last hat she’s wearing for us today to celebrate the launch of her first book of poetry, the fabulously titled You Do Not Need Another Self Help Book. I’ve read the collection and loved it so much — friends, go buy this book. Poetry was (and still is) so important to me when I was healing through my bereavement. Sometimes we just don’t have the words to describe how we feel, which is when the poet sweeps in with her magical eyes and puts into words that which we cannot.

When Sarah asked if I’d like to take part in her Virtual Poetry Reading, I knew exactly which poem I wanted her to read. There’s something extra special about hearing a poet read her own words… you’ll see what I mean when you listen.

So, enough with the chatter. Here’s the very wise and lovely Ms Sarah Salway reading my favourite poem from her new book… The Interruption

The Interruption by Sarah Salway (mp3)

The Interruption

(for Lia)

 

When I tell my daughter I’m working,

she nods, pulls her chair right up

to mine, elbows out, breath hot

with cheese and onion crisps.

 

She chooses a red pencil, starts

chewing, sighs over her blank paper,

tells me to shush. She draws us, stick

mother holding stick daughter’s hand.

 

Look, she says. I try to concentrate

on my work but she’s learnt

from me too well. Really look.

Clumsy fingers twist my hair

 

until we fight. I say she has to go now,

to let me get on with Mummy’s work.

Outside she sits so close to the door

I hear every rustle, every sigh so loud

 

that the note pushed under my door

comes like a white flag. Dear Mummy,

my daughter writes. This is me.

_____


Amazing, non?

Sarah has very generously offered to giveaway a signed copy of her book to one lucky soul, so if you’d like to win, simply leave a comment on this post answering the following question: what sweet interruptions do you have to deal with each day? Kids? Pets? Twitter? ;-)

I’ll announce the winner’s name on Friday.

Now head over to Sarah’s blog to follow the rest of her Pop Up Poetry Tour! x

Day thirty


I first shared this self portrait on the blog back in 2006; I’d been blogging for all of six months and was still grieving. I’d started learning how to use Photoshop, as evidenced by the heavy-handed editing, but beyond that, this photo reminds of how I felt back then, of how i’d only just begun my own unravelling journey. I was thinner back then too — i hadn’t grown myself back yet.

It was a surprise to stumble across this photo this morning — the poem that accompanied it speaks volumes to me:

Diary

When I’m dead and buried, or
thrown to the wind,
someone will read these words  –
a daughter perhaps, or a son maybe  –
but these words will live on
further, harder, than me.
I could leave messages today
for the prying eyes of tomorrow,
word-gifts to comfort them,
their mother an enigma who tested
and tried, who fought her battles and
surrendered in the end.
Will anyone care that these words exist?
That today I caught the coach back
from London and ate two fried eggs
on toast sat in front of the TV;
what will this tell the family I do not yet have,
my darling future children?
What will it tell them about their mother?
That once she was thirty-three and
tired and hungry for a better life,
a different life, uncertainty clouding
her view of the future, as it
does for us all; my children
will know this by then, I’m sure,
by the time they read these words –
these words I wrote today
thinking of them.