Book Club: Poems about a play of light and shadows - and glimpses of ‘full sun’
As he says, 'Broomhill Oxfam is a hub of the community and its shelves are a significant book exchange in which donors in effect recommend reading to each other. I have often read there, and enjoy the unpredictable audience.'
'Partial Shade' is the common gardening term for plants that in fact need a measure of sunshine. In John Birtwhistle's poems, there is a continual play of light and shadow – and even glimpses of 'full sun'.
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Hide AdThis selection from his own work does not follow chronology. It is an entirely fresh ordering, in which poems converse and argue with each other across the years. Lines about politics, parenting, mortality, art (and love, 'that bookish theme') are plaited together, intimate yet distinct. It makes available poems from out-of-print collections, as well as substantial new poems. The rhythm varies from lyric and narrative poems to 'haiku-like miniatures: agile, mobile and eventful' (Hugh Haughton). As the poet Michael Glover says 'John Birtwhistle is a marvellously versatile intellectual gadfly of a poet. No sooner do we think that we know his manner, his theme, than he is off elsewhere, teasing, amusing, throwing out possibilities like sweets strewn along a woodland path,' whilst Imtiaz Dharker finds them 'rich in scope and style, with surprising shifts and echoes'.
John Birtwhistle was born in Scunthorpe in 1946. His poetry has been recognized by many awards including a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He has had three concert libretti set and performed: David Blake’s The Plumber’s Gift was staged by English National Opera and broadcast on Radio 3. For twelve years, he was a Lecturer in English at the University of York. Birtwhistle is married to a Consultant Anaesthetist and since 1992 he has lived in Sheffield with his family.
DISTURBED HABITAT
Demolished, a rubble
hill of bricks
already colonised
by ash, bramble,
birch, coltsfoot,
it is in our lifetime
that the Works
flourished and died.
On its concrete floor,
outline ghosts
of machine footings
are stencilled
in black oil. Bald
groundsel roots
in a crack with steel
shavings that oncecurled from a lathe.
Hardest to wreck,a lift shaft is
left standing,
stripped of its floors
like the square tower
of a hill town
in Italy, sprayed
with graffiti tags,
all that is made here
now being art.
The chainwire fence,
enmeshed
with butterfly-bush
sans butterflies,
lets to an abandonedsteel yard
where, racked
on railway sleepers
distinct gauges
of rods and plates
lie coded in
their dabs of paint.
There is no
hammering, no
drilling, timing,
lifting noise.
Nor are machines
the only ghosts.
Sagging raftersof a factory
like the ribs ofa rotten ship fly
a DANGEROUS
STRUCTURE flag.
On its façade
can still be read
‘SUPPLIERS TO
THE BEAUTY TRADE.’
IN FAR GATE
where the Dutch florist
sets out tablets
of colour like a strict field
planted by Mondrian,
a Burmese woman
stands entranced at
blue waterlily heads,
one to a flask in
martial array:
“I can taste it
now. Mother
used to send us
in a rowing boat
to gather lily
roots from the lake.
I am leaning
over the side,
plunging through
flowers to grasp
the ever so sweet
slippery stuff.
We’d chew it before
it ever got
to the kitchen fire.”
Floating like lilies,
my sister and me.
[if you need a space filler, then some of the below!]
In-person Launch Event for Partial Shade by John Birtwhistle
Saturday 1 July, 12 noon, Broomhill Oxfam Shop.
Online Launch Event for Partial Shade by John Birtwhistle
Wednesday 28 June. Register in advance here:
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/events?showpage=847
Independent Bookshop Week – Save the Date!
June 17th-24th is Independent Bookshop Week. is a celebration of independent bookshops in the UK highlighting the vital role independent bookshops play in their communities. Why not visit Sheffield's independent bookshops Rhyme and Reason, Juno Books and La Biblioteka this week and see what their wonderful booksellers recommend for you?
Why shop indie?
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Hide AdIndependent bookshops are staffed with book experts who are wildly passionate about reading and getting the right book into the right hands. Independent bookshops bring vitality to our high streets, work with local communities and champion reading for pleasure. Independent bookshops have real passion, real people and real conversations. Independent bookshops offer proper browsing, perfect gifts and they pay their taxes!
How can I celebrate Independent Bookshop Week?
Find your local indie
Shop with them between Saturday 17th - Saturday 24th June 2023.
Share your book purchases on social media, tagging the bookshop, the publisher or author, and @booksaremybag and #IndieBookshopWeek