Tag: verse
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“My poems arise out of an experience.”: Q & A With Kim Whysall-Hammond, our 2023 ROAR Showcase Finale
“[M]y poems arise out of an experience, […]”: Q & A With Kim Whysall-Hamond Q. What is your earliest memory of poetry? A: My earliest memory of any poetry would be of Nursery Rhymes – my favourites were Mary Mary Quite Contrary and Baa Baa Black Sheep. I always, even at an early age, questioned why a…
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Day Seven, 2023 ROAR Showcase: Rose Bower by Kim Whysall-Hammond
Rose Bower for Gita, wherever you are Enchantment beckoned at the end of your gardenmany climbing roses intertwined into aa concealing bower where we spied on hidden lovershunted magic deer that leaptskywards and away fromour orbital arrows that encircled the world we swapped shoes and dresseseach handmade by our motherseach smelling so differentyou said all…
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Day Six, 2023 ROAR Showcase: Wilma by Kim Whysall-Hammond
Wilma I sit on the stairsof another woman’s houseone I love deeplymy mother was the star to herrockfast grace and kindnessbut stars burn out and die Wilma still shinesher back may be bent buther eyes glowthis house was sanctuaryand freedom to methe love she and hers gave megentle and calm Kim Whysall-Hammond grew up in…
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Day Five, 2023 ROAR Showcase: Incremental Understanding by Kim Whysall-Hammond
Incremental Understanding In the lineup of superheroesyou were the lost housewife your dream of family and many childrencame late and was never enough a restricted life left you resentingyour daughters busy career all that lost time smelt of lemons Kim Whysall-Hammond grew up in London in a working-class family, but now lives deep in the…
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Day Four, 2023 ROAR Showcase: Toxic by Kim Whysall-Hammond
Toxic I’m so tall, I’m so tallYet you raised me to be so small As waves wash an uncaring shoreSo I would wash you with my love As they caress rocks and pebblesI used to kiss your uncaring cheek Waited with the patience of wavesFor you to regard me To see the woman I had…
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Day Three, 2023 ROAR Showcase: Soap Aisle Woolworths 1960s
Soap Aisle Woolworths 1960s Soap smell, overpowering, strongtransfixed meeyes stinging wateringnose and throat burning rawI could not escapehow the counters towered over meI was there looking for youhad lost you in all those aisleshad been crying for so longbefore the scorching Then you found metold me off for strayingroughly wiped my eyesso that they stung…
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Day One, 2023 ROAR Showcase: Mother Love by Kim Whysall-Hammond
Mother Love Let me tell you about my motherabout silences and love withheld the need to communicateand the need to escape longing to be praised for what I had achievednot for the compliant proper girl I had never been we kept things light for a long whilesharing shoes and a love of good dressing At…
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What the Trash Reveals by Renwick Berchild
What the Trash Reveals A woman’s reliquary. Whole photo albums doused in nicotine, each bit of uneaten Shepherd’s pie with scissor snips, split pencils, blue crayon nubs— for don’t you know— I adore blue, in the ways it wantlessly weaves the woad soul through button holes and Cuckoo wasp mouths, in the ways it waves…
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Two Poems by Robert Okaji
Been There Robert Okaji, Poem Imagine how summer rain differs from winter’s. How I’ve become the blackest ribbon of your nights. What if pine needles rose from the earth to rejoin branches? And your conspiracies all wove true? A tapestry of bleak faces concealed in untruths. Bottles uncorked and emptied. I no longer fill your…
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Shaded Complexity by Sia Morweng
Shaded Complexity Sia Morweng, Poem I made a stream of My frustrations —Beneath it all Instructed. ..those that bled red Knew plastic not to be their destined container Let them bleed And while not depleting The tainted red found itself pouring endlessly Through this and that moments buried in my Lull personality. Persuaded. …those that…
Green Lion Journal 