I remember first reading Jay Bernard’s ‘Surge’ – and then reading it again, and again, and again. Not just because it was my assigned reading for that week of my module, but because the words struck such a powerful chord within me.
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Zelda seems to be most remembered for being ‘Fitzgerald’s crazy, untamable wife’, rather than the impressive writer and painter she was in her own right.
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Opening up the first pages of The Bloody Chamber in my A-Level Literature class, I was not expecting to discover a lifelong love of Angela Carter, a writer who has had so much influence for me.
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To read the first part of this series, ‘A Question Of Now’, click here.
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They leant their bikes against the mouth of the cave, sheltering from the weather. The change from the breathing forest to the stagnant air in the cave was not particularly pungent but noticeable. From the mouth, the cave led off in a fairly straight direction and, in the dim light, the two women could just about see a smaller tunnel meandering off to the right.
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It's been a year since the UK went into lockdown. We asked our contributors to submit their poetry they have written during this ‘unprecedented’ year.
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It is enough
that Sarah wanted to walk.
To take her time through the night.
To go safely home.
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‘OK so we have to numb the area first before we start snipping. Are you OK with that?’
“Am I OK with that? Yes! Yes! Numb away! Please! Lot’s of numbing! Do not hold back on the numbing!”
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I’m a middle aged women, married to a wonderful man. We have gifted, talented, open-hearted daughters. I am loved by those who love me - and that is what matters.
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I am the self-consumer of my woes
They rise and vanish in oblivious host
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live, like vapours tossed
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Brenda O’Lox sighed: she was conscious she’d sighed live on air but was getting a little fed-up.
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The image of the Lady of Shalott sat in a boat, floating down the river to her death, famously captured the pre-Raphaelite imagination, successfully ticking all their boxes with Arthurian legend, the natural world and a mysterious, ethereal woman at the centre of the action. Personally, I adore ‘The Lady of Shalott’ for its fascinating, complex and multi-layered web of imagery and symbolism, that is just as bewitching today as it was to readers in the 1800s.
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This was my fourth year attending the Bristol Poetry Institute’s Annual Reading. Normally, we would be gathered in the great hall of the Wills Memorial Building and, upon arriving barely on time, I would be sat in a row towards the back of the hall, rummaging around my rucksack for my glasses. This year, I was sat at my desk staring at a Crowdcast on my laptop with Claudia Rankine on my screen.
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Enara gazed out of the living room window. Already the walls of her house had started to close in on her. Usually the sight of an empty street greeted her from the window. The languid longevity of lockdown had locked away her freedom. Her planned holiday with her friends. Cancelled. The many barbecues she would have attended. Cancelled. Her birthday party. Cancelled.
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