poetryfest

Poetry Reading: THE FALLEN SOLDIER, by Patricia Krull

Performed by Peter-Mark Raphael

CARTLOADS – Poetry Reading by Sue Barnard

Performed by actor Peter-Mark Raphael

Get to know the writer:

What is the theme of your poem?

It’s a light-hearted parody of a very well-known poem: Cargoes by John Masefield. I updated the topic for a modern-day readership.

What motivated you to write this poem?

The idea just came to me out of the blue when I was pushing a shopping cart around a supermarket. By the time I reached the checkout I’d worked out the poem’s basic structure and thought of some of the lines. I had to keep repeating them over and over to myself until I got home and could write them down!

How long have you been writing poetry?

I’ve dabbled with it for most of my life, but it’s only during the past few years that I’ve started taking my work more seriously.

If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

Oh gosh, there are so many. But if I had to choose just one, I think it would have to be William Shakespeare. He was a great and prolific writer, and has influenced much of my own work, including two of my novels (see below). I’d love to ask him what he did during the seven years of his life which are unaccounted for, between leaving Stratford-upon-Avon and arriving in London. And I’d also find out once and for all if he spoke with a regional accent!

What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

It felt like a great opportunity, for which I am most grateful. Thank you.

Do you write other works? Scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

I’ve written a few short stories which have been published in anthologies, and I’ve also written four novels which are published by Crooked Cat Books. Two of these (The Ghostly Father and The Unkindest Cut of All) are based on works by Shakespeare (respectively Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar). The other two are Nice Girls Don’t (a romantic intrigue based on a search for family secrets) and Never on Saturday (a time-slip romance novella based on an old French legend). I currently have two other projects on the go, but they are still in the early stages.

I also do editing work for other writers.

What is your passion in life?

Life itself. It should be lived to the full. Every moment is precious, and will never come again.

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Producer: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com

Director: Kierston Drier
Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne
Editor: John Johnson

Camera Operator: Mary Cox

Read Poetry: I am afraid, by Pam Lewis

Genre:love, fear,letting go,heart, emotional, unknown,romance.

I am afraid to let you in
I am afraid of what this love would bring
I am scared of this unknown light
So with your love my heart daily fights
I am afraid to let your love be
I am scared to set your love free in me
So i close the eyes of my heart pretending not to see
That your love has completely saturated me
Your love got in without a key
And began loving me softly
I am afraid that your loving me
Is just to much for me……. to be

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Read Poetry: Are they still the same?, by Sunil Sharma

The streets
the surviving trees and
the wandering moon,

are they still the same
or changed?

The dusty locality
with twisted lanes/leaning houses,
the neighbours sitting outside, chatting
in the yellow sun, curs barking, kids fighting
over the ball?

Do the wooden doors always open these days
or shut on your face in alarm?

The summer breeze
evening/night; morning/day/afternoon lazing around

the bends in the uneven streets and crowded bazaars?
Does Ma’s wrinkled visage lights up, when someone
knocks in the late evenings; temple bells chiming in the background; her eyes searching the dim courtyard?

Does she still call out my name in the sedated sleep?

How does the water taste from that rusted hand-pump, near the Tulsi plant?

And the guava tree in the compound?

Do folks automatically smile and greet passing strangers in our dusty town or, have become terrified by the odd looks and dresses worn by them?

Are the old-world courtesies and customs remain the same?
Or, has the sweet town also changed and shut down?
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Bio:
Sunil Sharma is Mumbai-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 18 published books: Six collections of poetry; two of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, eight joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015.

Sunil edits the English section of the monthly bilingual journal Setu published from Pittsburgh, USA:
http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html

For more details, please visit the blog:
http://www.drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/

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Read Poetry: I Edit my Life, by Michael Lee Johnson

I edit my life
clothesline pins & clips
hang to dry,
dirty laundry,
I turn poetic hedonistic
in my early 70’s
reviewing the joys
and the sorrows
of my journey.
I find myself wanting
a new review, a new product,
a new time machine,
a new internet space,
a new planet where
we small, wee creative
creatures can grow.

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Read Poetry: GRAIN OF CHOICE, by Patrick Turner-Lee

Held in broken silence; a breath
A torn tissue left
Blood in channels flowing
Going to the window
That’s showing eloquent features.

Stepping in golden shoes;
In sunlit meadows
On sandy beaches

Reaching the shore
In shallow silver streams
That trickle between the stones
Thrown by angry voices.
Choices in terms of stagnant emotions.

A commotion of broken glass
Drifting to sea
Not to mention the thoughts in question

Cry at a drop in the ocean
At shards of crystal
A fire
A reaction
A faction of reality will no longer return

Burned by fusing sun and light
Exposed to negative reasons

Crisp in tired response we sleep
Until ideas wreck our slumber
Our number is up
The peace is frozen

May 5th 2017
Patrick Turner-Lee

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Read Poetry: Heroin, by Aylana St Luce

The blurred vision through cigarette smoke
And the slurred reaction of alcohol.
The art told on bodies,
Where lines and stories intertwine.
Where reality and fantasy keep together to close proximities.
The bodily fluid that are shared
The connection of strangers who don’t know the names of their guest.
Where I lose myself
Where “you” is just a meaningless word
and we soon become one, merged by the push of a wand.
My body somehow found itself lost
And I can feel the precision of your presence on my mind.
I no longer see the world I once was a part of.
You’re toxic tongue has influenced me towards the dark end of a never ending trail.
Somehow I’ve found serenity by the deck of cards that love has gambled in my system.
I am in love.
I am at peace.

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Read Poetry: Charmcaster’s Spellbook, by Man of Action

Gwen kept Charmcaster’s spellbook
As a souvenir
After she and Ben 10 returned
Back into their bodies

Charms of Bezel by Man of Action
Hex’s Charms of Bezel
That he used
To bring about the end
Of the world

Legendary Voice Actor
The man of many voices
A real legend
Who has been in the voice acting
Community
Since forever

Mal’s Spellbook by Josann McGibbon and Sarah Parriott
Maleficent gave Mal
Her spellbook
On her way to Auradon Prep
She had some mischief
While trying to steal
Fairy Godmother’s wand

Lock and Key by Man of Action
A powerful spellbook
Indeed
Kept under
Lock and key

His Other Spellbooks
He bought some spellbooks
To learn how to control his magical powers
After an advanced magician’s charms
Awakened his magic of light

His First Spellbook
He later kept the advanced magician’s niece’s
Old spellbook as a souvenir along with her old bag
Of stone golems and additional magic
Within the dimension of time and space

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Read Poetry: PUT ME TO SLEEP BEFORE IT COMES, by Sarah Francisco

Genre: Love, Fear, Sadness, Death, Loneliness

Put me to sleep before it comes
I pray that everything in me completely numbs
I cannot face it, seeing it coming back
Put me to sleep and don’t wake me up

Sleep is death’s kindred, a kindness
That approaches by night and lets
A weary soul get rest — solace
A way out of pain and sadness

Put me to sleep before it comes
An assault of memories — keeps on
Distracting me from my escape
It insists — keeping me awake

There is no running away in
The night when everyone is kept
Tight by a blanket of arms — so
Put me to sleep before it comes

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Read Poetry: Desert’s Watermelon, by Kate Rauner

Wild in the deserts
Of Egypt and Sudan,
Grows hard and bitter fruit
Called gurma in the land.
Harvested and hoarded
Somewhere in the shade,
It holds a fount of water
In green flesh that it made.
Water for dry seasons,
Water kept in storage,
Water for a Pharaoh’s Ba
On his celestial voyage.
The fibrous fruit was pounded,
So water bound would flow.
A gift to desert dwellers
Five millennia ago.
From one gene only dominant
That bitter taste was made,
So if recessive flowers met
The bitterness would fade.
Melons bearing yellow flesh,
By the Common Era’s time,
Rabbis classed with grapes and figs
As sweet within the rind.
The gene for sugar links with red,
Though DNA was not yet spelled,
Medieval farmers bred
A fruit fit for angels.
Ruby slabs of watermelon
Decorate my table,
While in the wild deserts
Its ancestral stock is stable.
Civilization could collapse,
There could be Armageddon.
But in five thousand years,
Survivors could
-Again -
Have watermelon
.
More at https://katerauner.wordpress.com/poetry/

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