Transhumance E-Book

David Batten

• Herausgeber: Cinnamon Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 30

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

In the mountains of France the seasonal movement of livestock from one region to another acts as a metaphor for transition and transformation in the human the human world, whilst 'humance' relates us to the natural world; to the animals we rely on, to the seasons affecting our behaviours, our movements. And the seasons themselves are also in transition: behaving – often unpredictably – according to a cosmic order governed by strange powers: black holes, red/black/white dwarves, planets, stars. The tightly honed lyrical poetry of Transhumance follows a narrative arc that recognises that we are irrelevant in our minuteness and yet central to everything; without our interference things fall apart, yet sometimes our interference is what unravels things. Exploring how humanity is rooted in and linked to everywhere and everything, Batten brings a fresh voice and precise language to this reflective debut collection.

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Dedication

Forging October

Saturnalia

Giant

Before the first snows

A Lacuna

Beyond the KT Boundary

Météo

The Language of Water

Carbon, We Are

As I age

Gwynedd to Machynlleth

Welsh Black

Marwnad

The Experiment

The Decent Light of Trade

Making It

Blinded by Sirens

The Honeymoon

A Homecoming

Lunar Eclipse

Moon and Dead Sea

The Vanishing Season

Occultation

Departure

Hull to Rotterdam

A Rotterdam Christmas

Transhumance

Christmas

Bridge

Hilltop

Winter Fruit

The Roman Way

In the High Woods

February

This White Noise

Vanishing Trick

Operation Uranus

So you won’t see winter out

Trees absorb light

Etapes

On the March

The Battle of the Trees

Origins

year 0

Thinking the sky

Fingerprint

Snow Falling in April

Duet in the Dark

Pink moon

In The Corrèze

Watching Clouds Form

Injury Time

May Sundays

Returning Sea

An Aveyron Transhumance

Notes on the Poems

TRANSHUMANCE

DAVID BATTEN

Published by Cinnamon Press

Meirion House

Tanygrisiau

Blaenau Ffestiniog

Gwynedd, LL41 3SU

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of David Batten to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. Copyright © 2015 David Batten.

ISBN:978-1-910836-17-0

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

Designed and typeset in Palatino by Cinnamon Press. Printed in Poland.

Original cover design by Adam Craig from a photograph by David Batten.

Cinnamon Press is represented in the UK by Inpress Ltd and in Wales by the Welsh Books Council.

The publisher acknowledges the support of The Welsh Books Council.

Thanks to the editors of journals in which some of these poems have appeared:

Dream Catcher, Envoi, The French Literary Review, Poetry Wales and in the following Cinnamon Press anthologies: The Book of Euclid, Jericho and A Roof of Red Tiles.

Thanks also to Will Kemp, my neighbours and friends in Penrhyndeudraeth and the warm, welcoming people of the Commune de Prades d’Aubrac.

A big hug to Jan for her help, advice and wisdom.

David Batten studied and played rugby at Hull before working in community development in Gwynedd. He now lives in the Aveyron where he chops wood, grows vegetables, brews beer and is Prof de Gym for the Dynamiques de Prades. Transhumance is his first collection. His second is due to be published by Cinnamon Press in 2018.

For Ingrid

Forging October

Merge Yorkshire’s moors with Mid-Wales’ mounds,

boost it up over twelve hundred metres,

float it out under an ocean-wide sky

for ultra-violet space bombardment

to bleach nodding grasses whiten remains

settling into dried-out peat, light cramming

into everything. Let cows, still roaming

amble off the fabric’s edge into dark valleys

path prepared the descent into winter.

On fencing posts, on mammoth stones riding

uncleared steppe, site buzzards and kites, still as

statues before a signal—gamma rays

at a certain angle, appearance of

a moon—until the invisible stir

of thermals in the cooling of the year

lends the lift they need to sweep smooth domes

and shallow folds freezing small mammal life

Saturnalia