Poetry Blog by David Redfield
Tags from last 12 months
The Lockdown Spring Renga Project
March - June 2020 :
During the early months of the UK lockdown, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic - I've been organising and running an online community writing project through various Facebook community boards, but in two different communities: Fakenham, in north Norfolk, where I live & work, and the Isles of Scilly, which I've known and loved for over twenty-five years. The two poems produ...
Thursday 9th July 2020 12:11 pm
Spring Will Be Delayed
our streets
are empty now:
spring sun tempts us - "lower
your guard, fall into this loving
embrace"
a cinquain
Wednesday 25th March 2020 7:04 pm
Shaman
I'm posting this following a conversation I had with the botanist John Parker (Director, Cambridge University Botanic Garden, 1996-2010) after a public reading from the book Deciphering Ancient Minds: The Mystery of San Bushman Rock Art by David Lewis-Williams and Sam Challis (Thames & Hudson, 2012). The South African San "bushmen" and their culture are a particular interest of John's, and we brie...
Wednesday 28th August 2019 7:55 pm
DR reading "Epona" on Linda Thomas's Book Show - Radio Scilly 17 June 2019
This is my own edit of an appearance I made on Radio Scilly last month. I've been a frequent visitor to the islands for twenty-five years, and they feature a lot in my work.
Linda Thomas is Scilly's estimable librarian, and it's great to be able to give her this shout-out as she's been a real champion of my work for several years now. The show itself was a blast (although you may not get that f...
Monday 22nd July 2019 11:51 am
Haiku: Robin at New Year
against the grey chill
a fire-red heart hammers its
fine threads of silver
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 2:22 pm
Pumpkinhead
at Oíche Shamhna, time of the aes sídhe
A ragged tonsure,
Or botched surgery,
Where the sooty soul exits.
Absences for features:
Swallowing the dark through
A pulpy hell-mouth.
Wednesday 31st October 2018 6:06 pm
Gathering Clouds
We could be
sheltered
from crumpling
horizons,
but atmospheres
are tempered
and all the weathers
culminating.
I don't want to stay
and await the flood:
there is already
in your face
a rain that will not
soon be dried.
Monday 25th June 2018 5:32 pm
Hitting the Wrong Note
Hitting the Wrong Note
Rooted next to his upright piano,
close in the tiny room,
I couldn't breathe.
He held one hand
to the small of my back,
the other across my
taut diaphragm:
(I can believe he loved
the music, but he craved
only angels, expected them -
and, by God, he was
going to have them,
even if he clipped
their wings along the way).
...
Wednesday 26th April 2017 10:55 am
Essay: poetry & the screen
This essay first appeared as an article in the spring 2010 edition of Wavelength, the journal (now sadly defunct) of Poetry-next-the-Sea. I'm glad to say that the festival is still extant, and grows from strength to strength. I make no pretence to comprehensiveness here - the subject is huge, untidy, and difficult to define - the references are simply to films, television films, and presentations...
Tuesday 4th April 2017 2:35 pm
Final Act
For the first girl I really loved ... long gone ...
____
Final Act
Brevity,
playing the fool
with time,
composes
his longest
soliloquy
in the actor's
dark asides.
Among the packed
stalls of eternity,
silence follows:
louder
than the aeons
of applause
life received.
Tuesday 7th March 2017 11:33 am
Two bird poems
Heron Taking Flight
Rickety, this ruckle
of struts and ragged canvas,
a collapsing tent
of awkwardness
unmade by the earth,
by degrees cranks into
its one true element:
slipping tethers
into air.
________
Preliminary Findings
Preliminary findings
suggest a probable
leakage of fuel
before the tank exploded.
(Cockpit not located
at th...
Friday 3rd March 2017 11:52 am
Olives
I guess that at one time or another - if we're being honest - we've all been blinded by the white hot heat and light of our fantasies, dreams, and ambitions; as poets it's practically in our job description to be thus.
The following poem owns up to flying too close to that particular sun, and the resultant crash-and-burn,
That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying for the impossible though ....
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 4:25 pm
A warm welcome ...
Hi Everyone,
The Isles of Scilly are a jumble of granite scraps thrown down twenty-eight miles west from the coast of Cornwall. Five of them offer shelter and a living for some one and a half-thousand people. Needless to say, for a community that sits permanently in the eye of Atlantic storms through the winter, and basks in beautiful, temperate Gulf Stream-fed summers, there is no shortage of ...
Thursday 16th February 2017 6:02 pm
Recent Comments
Greg Freeman on The Lockdown Spring Renga Project (Fri, 10 Jul 2020 02:21 pm)
David Redfield on Spring Will Be Delayed (Thu, 26 Mar 2020 10:24 am)
keith jeffries on Spring Will Be Delayed (Wed, 25 Mar 2020 08:20 pm)
David Redfield on Shaman (Thu, 29 Aug 2019 08:33 am)
Devon Brock on Shaman (Wed, 28 Aug 2019 10:35 pm)
Candice Reineke on Pumpkinhead (Wed, 31 Oct 2018 06:25 pm)
Travis Brow on Hitting the Wrong Note (Wed, 3 May 2017 06:19 am)
raypool on Hitting the Wrong Note (Wed, 26 Apr 2017 07:58 pm)
Paul Waring on Hitting the Wrong Note (Wed, 26 Apr 2017 07:04 pm)
Karen Ankers on Hitting the Wrong Note (Wed, 26 Apr 2017 06:15 pm)