Biography

My first full-length poetry collection 'Dr James Graham's celestial bed' was published by 'Comma Press' in March 2006 (www.commapress.co.uk).

" The poems in this debut collection are made from intense sensual experience, bursting with colours, flavours and textures. Gaia Holmes has an eye for the strangeness of things..." -Jean Sprackland.

"There's something in these poems that I can only call detailed intimacy' and 'closely worked humanity'; the language is inclusive but still challenging and draws me into reading after reading."-Ian MacMillan.

"Sassy and streetwise, dark and blue, these are poems that are high on words; full of rich imaginings and dislocated love affairs, peopled with ordinary folk made exotic, and with the strange made true."- Amanda Dalton.

I have been working as a 'writer' for several years: facilitating poetry/creative writing workshops in West Yorkshire and beyond. I was a lecturer in Creative writing at Huddersfield university for 2 years. I have collaborated with artists, film-makers and musicians.
I have read at several literary festivals and at schools, pubs, libraries, coffee shops and galleries throughout Britain.
I'm available for workshops and readings!!!

Samples

EPIPHANY

And it comes to me
as we drive through moors
clotted with burnt, black heather,
where the air smells of sulphur and honey.
Inland, away from you
the sky is a finger painting:
stale streaks of dark clouds daubed
above the slated roof tops.
You have to learn to register these things:
the sweet and the sour
moments of life,
each dead pheasant you pass
fluttering like a ballgown
in the motorway breeze,
each blurred wasp you see
pulped against the windscreen:
the frail mortality of colour.
Remember-this is the way you breathe,
like a symphony of echo
trapped inside a shell.
On days like this
there are certain things that you recall:
the clinging breeze loaded with salt,
dead fish rotting on the tide line,
the way that the edges of the land
blurred and spread
and sunk into the sea
Remember that day when we woke
because the sun beams nudged us
out of our sticky nest of sloth.
Our ambition became sobriety.
We binned empty wine bottles
and sour milk,
scoured lust off the dishes,
sat out in the garden,
and waited for our hearts to dry.



I'D LIKE TO LIVE IN A FRENCH FILM

where the thin tea-brown light
paints me wise and beautiful
and the sound of my neighbour
playing Elgar on his violin
seeps through the walls
and makes
a stinging soundtrack
to my life.
Nothing will be bland:
you will be addicted
to my skin,
you will smoke
stumpy Gauloise cigarettes,
fill your car
with lust and violet clouds
as you drive through storms
dodging
monstrous wind-fall trees
and crashed telegraph poles
just to get to me,
just to plant little kisses
like forget-me-nots
at the top of my thighs.
And in the morning,
every morning
the wet streets will shine
like pewter,
the world will sound
like Paris and rain.
The air will smell
of hot sugar,
swollen dough
and carousels.



WHEN HE COMES

So this is it.
This is the night.
Downstairs the sofa
doesn't know me anymore,
my occasional china
is cracking with boredom,
the front door
is guarded by foxgloves
and throttled
with toad-flax
and this is it.
This is me;
mad woman in the attic
sifting the air for gold-dust,
a circle of crushed moths
patterning the carpet
around my feet,
cold coffee at my elbow,
logic in a hip-flask
and I'm drinking wine
that tastes of hay
and Denmark in July
and we're all waiting
for the storm, an answer,
a fag-burn in the sky,
words etched into
the slick streets,
the soft porn
of rain
on the skylight window.
We're all waiting
for our dead dogs
to rattle up the stairs
We're all waiting
for our grandmother's
to polish our eyes
with spit
on the corner
of a duster.
We're all waiting
for someone to say our name
with meaning.
We're all waiting,
ears angled cat-like,
waiting,
for a car to pull up,
waiting,
for inspiration
to open the door
and enter
smelling of life,
of blood,
of little deaths,
of unspeakable notions
and say I'm yours.
Take me now.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.