Poetry offers opportunity to relate to number, music and word simultaneously while engaging with imagination, memory and deep observation.
Rosie discovered poetry as a child and loved the sound of the words and the rhythms even when not knowing meanings. The song behind the words rings out in her work, which is often about the natural world or close observation of relationships. She likes humour and performs those poems at slams or literature events. She has also run a monthly poetry, song and story club in Ayr to encourage new performers to express themselves in a friendly supportive environment. She can run workshops to encourage new writers to play and stretch their horizons.
She attends Donnie O’ Rourke’s well-kent Glasgow poetry group meetings. Since 2012 has been working with the Scottish poetry library and Scottish storytelling Centre on the Living Voices project, bringing poetry, song and story as well as objects as prompts for conversation with groups of older people, many with dementia.
Here’s a couple as her poems as tasters:
Firstly a wee urban pigeon story from a trip to London:
Euston Station, 11am
It’s never been easy being a pigeon
No its never been easy being a ‘grey’
There is food in the cracks in the pavements
But they sweep all the best of stuff away
Your legs get all wound up with the rubbish
With sparkly tinsel I’ve been bound
It doesn’t make me feel really festive
Just worried I’m so shiny I’ll be found
The crows call a warning “ ‘He’ is coming”
That’s the One, bright of beak and fierce of claw
Who hides under doorways by the station
Cramming yellow chicks into his maw. He’s
Marched out by his owner round the plaza
Jolly bells all a-jingle, proud and gay
And if we pigeons crowd round the tables
He flies up high to drive us all away
It’s hard to survive as urban pigeon
When councils put a hawk upon your tail
Sure, its survival of the fittest, but
I wish some tit would lead him from my trail
So I’ll be here early in the morning
Before the Bells and Jesses have arrived
Greet commuters and Big Issue sellers
And no more lunchtime cocktails on the side.
Next poem is about an event at Largs Station, when the train just didn’t stop at the buffers. Being married to a railway driver at the time, this meant rather more to me: train driving is a hazardous occupation, many drivers have suffered nervous breakdowns or PTSD. (I haven’t worked out how to preserve the dog-leg formatting for this one yet)
Terminal 11.7.95
O six fifteen Three car
Electrical Multiple Unit
Glasgow Central
Destination: Largs
Scotrail’s Sunrise Livery
Pacer 318254
Blazing Economy
Three Commuters Onboard
Driver Guard
After Kilwinnning
West Kilbride Fairlie Largs
Approaching Largs
(Cumbrae ferry, Vikingar
Nardini’s icecream, promenade)
Retirement Destination
Select brakes
Zero Response
Emergency
No Response
almighty Bang
Bogies Ride Buffers
Three feet into the air
Seeking Direction
Pantograph torn loose in
runaway railway horror
ploughed length of concourse
Through shops in the main hall
Like a set of dominoes
Whole. building shaking
Through ticket office
Towards the seaside fun and games
Victorian canopy (1885) shattered
Station dis – integra – tes
Wee cafe
falls in her wake, impaled
As the breakfast run
is done.
Reminiscence work produced this wee piece:
Toasting forks
He made this fork
from scraps of wire
he salvaged afterward
from bomb sites
Fine, not frail
extending a forearms’
length protecting flesh
from flame. Roasting
crumpets on December days
from weekly Baker’s runs
Gale’s honey spooned to ooze
through pores and butter
seeping through the doughy core
of morning’s crusty slabs
Blackened with soot
and sweat from heaving coal
from bunkers
to fireside and dripping
soothing tonsils full
of winter chills, coating tongue
and palate thickly slick with
Butcher’s fat, potted into jars to give
a taste of fat-cat luxury, Sunday roasts
he never knew.
Quick fries of sausage link
pork chop with kidney on, a treat
for supper time, bread and
toasted cheese the usual
Pickles thick and onions
speared, this fork proudly portrays
his melting spot of
savoury desires while
toasting war-blackened
limbs by friendlier fires.