Sanctuary E-Book

Angela Graham

• Herausgeber: Seren
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 51

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

"A necessary and urgent response to the world's increasing crises…" – Robert Minhinnick "These poems are challenging, immediate, generous, uncompromising, urgent interventions in present-day affairs. The poems are tough but humane, sensitive but fearless, alarming but reassuring: this collection reminds us that at a time of trauma poetry is not optional - it is essential." – Dr Kevin De Ornellas, Lecturer in English, Ulster University "…impactful, emotionally-resonant, multicultural collection" Dr Matthew M. C. Smith, writer and editor of Black Bough Poetry. Sanctuary is – urgent. The pandemic has made people crave it; political crises are denying it to millions; the earth is no longer our haven. Even our minds & bodies are not refuges we can rely on. Angela Graham & 5 other poets from Wales & Northern Ireland explore Sanctuary from the inside, asking how we can save the earth, ourselves and others?

Leseprobe

SANCTUARY

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Suite 6, 4 Derwen Road, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 1LH

www.serenbooks.com

facebook.com/SerenBooks

twitter @SerenBooks

The right of Angela Graham to be identified as

the author of this work has been asserted in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Editorial and her poems © Angela Graham, 2022

Individual poems © their authors, 2022

ISBN: 9781781726785

Ebook: 9781781726914

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without

the prior permission of the copyright holder.

The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Books Council of Wales.

Printed in Bembo by Severnprint Ltd, Gloucester

Supported by The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Contents

Collaboration: Sanctuary Poets Send Their First Drafts

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine: First Day

Leaving the Bombed City

Since the Evacuations from Kabul

A Heerd tha Sodjer on tha Radio

Persian New Year

You – Mahyar

Consider

Border Crossing, Reynosa to Hidalgo – Glen Wilson

A Teenage Catholic Safety Expert, Protestant East Belfast

Glimpses

Chronic

For Stephen, As He Leaves for the Shrine of Santiago de Compostela

Another Lake, Another Land – Phil Cope

Triptych

Three Stones

To the Mapper of Holy Wells and Springs

Prompted by Offeren Y Llwyn

Sanctum Trilogy – Csilla Toldy

The Journalist – for Nedim Türfent

The Sanctuary

Attending

Annunciation, Visitation

After Iconoclasm 1: A Reflection On Technique

After Iconoclasm 2: Annunciation Re-assembled

After Iconoclasm 3: The Jesse Tree Window

After Iconoclasm 4: Defaced Angel Holding Defaced Souls

After Iconoclasm 5: A Teenage Tartan Gang Member

After Iconoclasm 6: The Chapel of the Trees

A Gardener Imagines Death During the Pandemic

In Early Lockdown: Antrim

Vision, North Antrim, in the Aftermath of Lockdown

In This Sanctuary – Viviana Fiorentino

There Must Be Somewhere

Home

The Poets

Acknowledgements

It’s urgent – Sanctuary. We live on an imperilled planet. The air we breathe is compromised by pollution and potential infection. Trust in authority and in one another has become harder to maintain. Is anything sacrosanct? What does ‘holy’ mean for us these days and what do we believe in? How can we be safe – and open? How are we to respond to war and upheaval? We need other people; we fear other people. How do we find our personal Sanctuary; or create it for others? And if we are fortunate enough to be in a safe place, who do we let in or keep out? What do we lose in return for our safety?

I was determined to explore these questions in poetry, but I wanted to create a set of poems which would embody that aspect of Sanctuary which is an opening up to give space to others. I realised I could ask other poets to join me. In addition, if I had to seek safety somewhere strange to me, I’d hope that local poets would welcome me and let me offer my poetic culture and share in theirs. As I live in both Wales and Northern Ireland, I sought a poet living in each place who has gone through this experience. I found Mahyar. He is an Iranian now living in Wales. Csilla Toldy is a Hungarian film maker and writer who fled communist Hungary and now lives in Northern Ireland.

I also looked for two poets engaging with other aspects of Sanctuary. Poet and novelist, Viviana Fiorentino is an economic migrant from Italy now living in Northern Ireland who is a social activist with migrants and prisoners of conscience. Welshman Phil Cope is a photographer and writer who is an expert on holy places in the British Isles.

But could we take a further step? Could each of these poets fashion their poem together with me? This collaborative approach proved to be a joyful, stimulating, delicate and very positive experience in each case. To be the first reader of a draft work is a privilege. To be permitted to engage at increasingly deeper levels challenges both parties but it proved to be akin to how I imagine the process of sculpting. There’s a certain holding of nerve in order to deliver a critique or praise and a moment of tension as the result of that intervention makes itself clear. Something new emerges, is assessed, accepted or rejected and we go ahead in the pursuit of the true, the real, the poetically beautiful; and holding to the poet’s core vision.

Collaboration with the Northern Irish poet, Glen Wilson took a different form. He acted as mentor to my poetry and contributes a fine poem of his own about migration.

My engagement with the backgrounds of the other poets and with their work has allowed me to learn about societies, cultures and experiences other than mine. This is enormously enriching, also in terms of craft.

I am inspired by the Welsh Government’s ambition to make Wales the world’s first Nation of Sanctuary. In Northern Ireland the Cities of Sanctuary Movement is developing.

At least five themes emerge strongly from the work in this book: Sanctuary in another person or persons; in the divine or the numinous; in the world, as itself a sanctuary for humanity; as the goal of major population shifts and in the response of receiving populations; as the hosting of the self within the body

I used to think of Sanctuary as primarily a place but this work has shown me that Sanctuary is also something that can be lived. We can be people of Sanctuary.

–Angela Graham

In my poem I wanted to explore the inner workings or imaginings of an illegal immigrant caught by border police, in this case at the border between Mexico and the USA.