Meg Bowyer Biography
Meg Bowyer is an Osteopath who enjoys a wide range of interests including painting, reading and flying.
Since joining the ‘Write Women’ just over a year ago she has been inspired by the poetry of the group members. This has encouraged her expand her own approach to poetry writing and to explore and research specific topics.
Felicity Brookesmith Biography
I have belonged to Write Women Workshops since 1993, writing and publishing poems in Equinox, Connections, Mslexia,and hosting Write Women Poets in readings and performances in Thanet, Sandwich and Canterbury.
My poems appear in Write Women Workshops collections: Celebrating Women produced for charity & Another Stage Further, in aid of the new Ramsgate Library.
Val Doyle Biography
Val Doyle has belonged to WW since 1997, and have been writing poetry for about fifteen years. Some has been published, and she has two small collections, "Paperbacks and Chips in Bell Street" "A Pause in Time" and "Two Feet Above the Sand". She has always enjoyed WW workshops and found them inspiring and supportive.
Hilary Drapper Biography
Hilary Drapper lives in Broadstairs. She joined the Write Women Poetry Group from its beginning in 1991. She has been published in Connections, Equinox, Write Women collections and Sixty Poems for Haiti, 2010.
Maggie Harris Biography
Maggie Harris was a founding member of The Write Women and organiser of the Inscribing the Island Literature Festival in Thanet. A poet, prose writer and tutor, her latest collection of poetry is After a Visit to a Botanical Garden.
Lavinia Lewis Biography
Lavinia Lewis Poems
Cathy Richards Biography
Cathy Richards has been a member of the Write Women poetry group since 2004. She has had poems included in two anthologies by Write Women, and has recently had her own printed, entitled: "A Palace by the Sea". Cathy is also a musician and enjoys using music to reflect the mood of a poem and setting lyrics to music to create songs.
Sarah Tait Biography
Sarah Tait enjoys walks along the Thanet coast, trips to the mountains when she can, and a good helping of reading and trying to write poetry whenever it is possible to fit this in to her busy life as a Nurse working in residential childcare. For Sarah, poetry is a part-time hobby she would one day like to develop further. She plans to produce a collection someday soon.
Feel the earth move?
Get out quick, don’t wait.
Trapped, maimed or killed,
by brick, or falling slate.
Help my baby feel the house rock.
As the earth quakes the rafters will drop,
As the roof falls, you hear mummy call
Down will come baby walls and all.
In all the disaster, small miracles are abound
Babies cry, dug from rubble, alive, safe and sound.
Heroes are made, mostly unsung,
Surrounded by horror, from their hearts bravery is wrung.
Resilience of mankind is amazing to me.
Bright blue sheet plastic - home for a family.
People working together, even though it’s so grim,
Bonding and forming, beginning life again.
“We get the call, and within hours, go where we're sent.
With our laptop sized equipment -
Satellite telephone to connect with Aid workers and NGOs.
And direct help to where it is needed most.
With twenty six of us here on the ground
We keep five centres open, the whole clock round.
The best instances will always be,
When a good outcome is due someway to me........”
Today rescue workers happily found
A baby, dug from rubble, alive, safe and sound.
“After the immediate help and rescue are done,
People then need to contact someone.
Have a need to tell someone, that they hold dear,
That they are all right, that they're still here.”
“I woke my daughter in New York.
She thought I'd died so it came as a shock,
To hear my voice on the phone in the night.
I had to reassure her – yes, yes, I'm all right.
I'm not a ghost -no, yes, I'm ok, ok -
I'm just one precious minute away.”
“We give each one a minute.
One free minute!
That's all it can be -
The queue continues endlessly…..”
“We have nothing, no roof at all.
Where our street was there's not even a wall.
We have only a sheet under which to sleep,
So when it rains we have to keep
Standing, sometimes all night long.
Yes, yes, I told you, number 57 is gone.”
“Just one minute allowed each call,
They ask for tents, $50 – that's all.
They ask for so little, and have lost so much.
The important thing is that they can get in touch....”
“I was visiting my sister and her family,
I was the only one to get out safely.
I have nothing; I am all alone –
I’ve lost my mobile: my contacts all gone.
Except for my boyfriend living in Connecticut,
His number will be forever engraved on my heart!
One precious minute was wonderful for me -
To be able to phone home from Haiti.
Innate courage,
Never say die,
Trying again and again,
Even with odds so high;
Resourceful and resilient,
Nature’s upholder;
Against all oppression,
True to the cause.
Indomitable spirit,
Oh! Woman thou art,
Nurturing, nourishing,
All from the heart.
Let us celebrate Women today.
Woman’s true strength,
Often seen in small ways,
Mothering,
Empowering,
None overlooked;
So full then, her days.
Down seven times before giving way,
Ardent hearted woman –
You are celebrated today!
On the edge, you tell me
you have tied love-knots in the rope.
The fear of fraying
flings me into shadows
while the moon free-falls
over the cafe
where I ponder reef knots,
left over right, right over left,
and I am practising a mantra
to rope me to the edge
where I can untie the knots
before you cut and run
She cannot stop me
slipping through her fingers.
She catches me
dancing on her hair, jumping
on her back.
She moans as I fall
down her breasts,
land on her feet - and run.
She sings
as she plays me over her belly,
diverting me
to warm crannies, to disperse
their scents, before she presses
to stop me,
and I slip-trickle away.
hiccupping
into the dark,
slip-falling
into labyrinths
that do not hold me.
Rich red on luscious green
they drape the sharply scented hothouse
throat-catching
aromatic
settlers from the South.
Pampered,
nurtured
in artificial heat,
they droop
in equatorial abundance
Together we pick
them carefully,
our alien hands
meeting in brief
caress among the fronds.
Soon we will cut and slice
their spurting richness,
then fold their southern tang
in crusty buttered bread
and eat them greedily.
The pastel shells fan out and gleam
in heaps and jazz-streaked whorls
purple and cream and frou-frou frilled
azure and ivory cornucopias
three-cornered dolly mixture packets of my youth
a message from the Caribbean
picked from a cooling beach beneath a red-streaked sky.
I shuffle the shells, hold up to English light
am paid in shining colours
as once explorers were by greeting innocents.
Trapped sand trickles to the floor.
and we are children again,
our fingers touching through a tunnel of sand.
Your cool skin on mine,
as if I’ve peeled off a white kid glove
after a summer wedding. Childhood memories
come flooding back to me on the breeze:
warm summery smells of fish and chips
and plastic shoes and Ambre Solaire
and the inside haunt of shells.
We make a moat, our hands disturbing years
of history. The sea flirts on the edge, taunts us,
before trickling in and we clap our hands.
Within minutes the sandcastle crumbles and sinks
like a small island but our feet
are spread-eagled on an island of our own.
On the way home, reluctant to leave,
you buy me a rock of sky paper blue
with the words ‘I love you’
running all the way through.
Life? Plain sailing -
until now -
unrestricted by love.
Yet now she is his centre,
his energy,
his light-filled days.
He waits for her
to return his feelings
that never waver;
chases dreams and longings,
not knowing where the skies end
or the earth begins
without her.
The tantalising touch of her arm on his
kindles a headiness in him;
arouses a passion
that takes his breath away.
She sweet-murmurs his name
and he hungers for the taste of her
but holds back -
unsure. A wrong move,
a word out of place
and he could face a return
to his world of glass
where no-one cares,
no-one speaks,
no-one loves.
In Broadstairs this summer the sun shined again
the rain fell
the children played by the bandstand
swimming in a pagan heat of dragons.
The Morris men danced.
In the craft tent, the effigies of myth -
Celtic crosses, gold and stone
Welsh slate, curled iron,
plastic.
I used to live here once.
The view remains the same
sea curling unconcernedly into the bay
faces you have passed for thirty years
searching yours for signs of aging.
The promenade has gone up-tempo
glitzy cafes, gold decking
glass frontages cloistering their customers
like fragile seedlings from the lick and spit
of the Channel where the galleons still lie
rusting on the seabed's silver trail to El Dorado.
Neruda's breath fans this exiled cheek.
In the High Street, Icelands I believe
is moving into Woolworths.
The shop I bought the bougainvillea
has long since gone. I remember
carrying it like a child, its head of purple turning
this way and that to see where it was going.
In Wales it refuses to flower.
The tree ferns died.
I won't go pass the house.
I used to live there once.
I hold your hand, stroking your forearm gently
with my fingers, aware of time fleeting,
taking with it your strong, beautiful hands.
Red-gold hairs on your arm, glint in the sun’s
light. Through the glass we can see the garden
in its winter coat, splashed with bright berries.
Sculptured trees stand stark and bare,
with arms raised, poised, like dancers waiting
for the music. Slight movements expose a finch
searching where pale shoots are breaking the soil.
Your gaze shifts, our eyes meet, acknowledging
the Spring you would not see.
I can no longer visualise your face,
until some small remembered thing;
the way you stretched and shaved
your skin, your writing in our
in our address book,
A beautiful house – where Sikorsky’s
ghost stalked the lives of two Polish
sisters, one his widow, both flitting
around like two faded moths inside
a lamp shade.
Here, we laughed under the covers
while future tenants inspected the
rooms, late one afternoon.
Where the landlord skulked on the stairs
to our top-floor flat, keeping watch
on our ticking meter. Each Saturday
he slithered through our bedroom
on his way to his weekly bath.
A fertile place, full of young couples,
whose rampant hormones could be
heard through thin ceilings, as nightly
exercise took place on all floors.
This flat was our last,
we found a cottage, with a garden.
We grew flowers, grew up, grew babies,
I remember you.
I am just and ordinary woman,
my needs are very few.
Of course I want the moon and stars,
to drive around in sporty cars,
wear Dolce & Gabbana dresses,
have Nicky Clarke to style my tresses
and shoes by Jimmy Choo.
I am just an ordinary woman,
my needs are very few.
I want to visit exotic places,
be photographed with famous faces,
wear mink to cover my bikini
as I climb into a Lamborghini,
with shoes by Jimmy Choo.
I am just an ordinary woman,
my needs are very few.
All I need is you ……
and shoes by Jimmy Choo.
I savour the smell of coffee -
freshly ground it glides down my throat.
The sun sparkles on the sea
glistening on the gently undulating waves.
The air is filled with the chattering sounds of seagulls and crows
and the pontifications of people:
Two women - mums with kids at school I gather -
absorbed in discussing the wrongdoings of an ex-husband.
Sparrows search the empty tables for crusts and crumbs,
and a butterfly dances up and down across the grass
then slips silently out of sight.
This tranquil place - a refuge from cares and troubles:
Who, sitting here, could fail to feel lighter,
lifted by the sights, sounds and smells
of the coffee lounge by the sea?
Woman, nurturer, carer, floating
surreal swell of a wave
one arm for a child and one for a dream
washing up in a close embrace;
a headful of details
of children's homework, parties,
Brownies, dance class,
packed lunch, nappies, milk and a change of clothes -
loving the closeness of kisses and cuddles,
the smiles, the wide trusting eyes,
yet at times desperate to escape
from drowning in the overflowing sink
or suffocating in the bursting washing basket.
Is this what she dreamed of in the heady days of college
when she could have been anything she wanted?
But all is not lost:
Buried deep down inside
the will to survive is strong and intact.
Her arm reaches out and pulls away
the stained coffee cup,
the juice covered sleepsuit
unblocking the flow of air to her lungs.
She can still sing and dance,
write and play:
She can still create – she needs to now more than ever.
If she does not forget her dreams then maybe her daughter will one day remember hers.
It was the first time I’d seen a mountain.
It was before poetry,
before I began to try to capture
cloud-drops that cannot be held.
The words? They came,
with time, long after I first heard the wind
that sang through that valley,
sweeping me up to an unnamed summit,
mist cleaved by sunlight, and a view to fall into
forever.
From the train I see the gusting breeze
romping through the barley, green waves
rolling out towards the snake-scale gleam of the Wantsum
and the whisper of the ferryman blowing on his fingers
beside the choking silt. Two white geese,
parallel darts skimming stubbled earth,
silent wing-beats viewed through glass
as the train picks up speed, whirrs past crumbling Reculver
and a Centurian wrapping his arms against the chill,
waiting for the changing tide. From the train
I see the dotted field mown short
by straggled sheep, fleeced heads bent low
under the emptied cooling towers guarding the horizon
and the whistle of the ferryman propped on his haunches
scanning the wetland noon. Ancient cormorant,
lonely as a memory, pinned to the croak of the breakwater
edging the shingled path to Richborough fort
and the low sigh of the ferryman uncoiling his rope,
tasting the afternoon salt.
Hey Bianca, your Antonio’s coming home
with a twist of a Tenet whelk-shell
in his pocket for luck. Can you hear the sea Knut?
see the train track drowned
by the gurgled rush of a now-turned tide
and the ferryman, oars poised,
turning his boat to the setting sun.
day trip, short-break, summer hols –
having a lovely time with the sand-between-my-toes,
seaweed sliding round my ankles,
watched by the donkey’s sunset gaze
and frisbee-d back to the salt-and-vinegar years
when you were here -
train-ride, coach-trip, car full of hope –
a knicker-bocker-glory by the clunking jukebox,
smokey lungs cleared by the gusting air
pushing me up to a pint at the Albert
and egg and chips with the salt-and-vinegared cheers,
feeling you near -
gift-shop, whelk-stall, souvenir-stand –
choosing a snap to say I love you on six-by-four
with a fading sun sliding down the bandstand
as the trombones melt into sepia,
hearing your whisper on the salt-and-vinegared pier,
wishing you were here.
