It’s a week ago that ‘EXPOSURE’ launched in Cardiff. I am writing about it only now because it has been an exceptionally busy time.
Jon Gower, pictured top left above, was a wonderful interviewer and host. He made it very easy for me to talk about the book, and with such a receptive audience it was a pleasure to read poems from the collection. I felt a strong sense of engagement with the audience.
Publisher, Phil Cope, of Culture & Democracy press, has been enormously generous in the time and attention he has devoted to this book. His faith in me has moved mountains.
I received the beautiful yellow roses below from one of the Ukrainians present.
And I’m grateful to the many people who braved a wet night on a rugby weekend, heavy traffic and the resulting atrocious parking conditions to help launch this book!
I feel immensely privileged to have this support. Thank you.
THIS, AND THIS TOO
Night. I walk a shred of the Milky Way,
a luminescent path of scattered white.
Like sugar on a slate, the stars’ display,
while here pale limestone lays a track of light
along the boreen between hedge and hedge,
a grosser version of the road above.
Brightness from rock: this seems to me a pledge
that nothing is impossible to Love;
and earlier, on the beach, the setting sun
struck swarms of tiny stars from the damp sand.
I walked on constellations as they shone
in a beige sky, a heaven on the strand.
Both these are true: I walk in doubt or dread;
I walk on stars with stars above my head.
Exposure can be ordered from Culture and Democracy press