Cheryl Moskowitz at Poetry at home

A reading featuring eight poets who have published, or will be publishing, new collections between 2021 – 2022 from publishers, Seren Books, Broken Sleep, Verve, Bad Betty Press and Against the Grain Poetry Press

It’s a great line-up – Liam Bates, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Abeer Amir, Shruti Chauhan, Kim Moore, Hannah Hodgson, Bryony Littlefair and Cheryl Moskowitz will be reading from Maternal Impression.

MATERNAL IMPRESSION BY CHERYL MOSKOWITZ

Moskowitz interrogates familial love with a wounding sharpness and compelling strangeness, unearthing uneasy truths. It is a call to maternal arms. 

Poet biography and sample poems.

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“Reading Maternal Impression is to have the feeling of walking on nails with bare feet, with the assurance of trust. I go tenderly where these fine poems take me, knowing they will advance my pleasure, my empowerment.” – Daljit Nagra 

Sarah Mnatzagarian wins Spelt Poetry Competition

Congratulation to our 2022 poet, Sarah Mnatzagarian who wins the  Spelt Poetry Competition judged by Maggie Harris. We’re publishing Sarah’s pamphlet, Lemonade in the Armenian Quarter, next spring. Until then, here’s the star poem. Congratulations also to Rachel Davies and and Diana Cant who came second and third.

Somerset soundtrack

Jack-jack-jackdaws yack-yack everywhere and here’s a car
and trailer squawking steel, stinking diesel. Ferns lick
into the lane and goose grass grapples up the hedge.
Just imagine your slipslap feet don’t sound menacing
to small creatures. Hear the soil drink last night’s rain,
breathe the fat green air until another car passes ~ hello
goodbye – with a sad-eared dog in the back. Cheecheechee
if you could learn these birdcalls, life would be sweeter.
Ten young ash have all died back. Where will the birds
sit tomorrow? A DPD van barrels past the festival gate.
It’s just a restival this year, no Glasto crowd, no music.
Turn right to Cockmill, nicking, slicking downhill
through dog-rosed, blackbirded, Stella-canned hedges.
Pylons cricklecrackle down the valley, make ears shrink
like baked snails as the buzz builds. Worthy Farm sign says
Don’t shoot in these fields – there are lovely cows and even
lovelier people wandering everywhere – Michael Eavis.
Lark, you’re in charge of the morning and oak trees
have possession of this lane. Come down to the dark ford
where midges pixillate the stream and roots have woven
a bank and there’s a call to prayer from the young oaks.
Maybe you can tell me the name of the singer? Listen,
it says all the right things to the mosquitos celebrating
over the water as I trudge my heart hard uphill home.