The Fig Tree - Issue 4
with Featured Poet Matthew Paul
Welcome to the fourth issue of The Fig Tree. We continue to get new subscribers and the number of people reading the issues remains encouragingly high.
I only met the Featured Poet Matthew Paul fairly recently – in the first reading I attended he got my attention with some beautifully observed poems about his childhood in England in the 1970s. Those of us in the audience of that age recognised the references and images immediately. The poem Half Board at the Alum Sands Hotel is a masterpiece of this genre:
At the hotel there's just enough time for ping-pong
over a sagging net in the basement Games Room
If you were a child of this era, get a copy of Matthew's collection The Evening Entertainment – you won't regret it. He's also a superb Haiku technician and his longer poetry sees the benefit of this concise imagery.
Forthcoming issues are filling up, but please do continue to send in submissions. You may have noticed that the Featured Poets so far have all been men. This will be rectified in Issue 5 and beyond, with some fabulous poems written by women already in the pipeline for the feature section.
One of the women in this issue, Deborah Harvey, has a new collection out in September. Her poems in this and the prior issue are part of the collection, Love the Albatross, which I will review on Tim Fellows Poetry in the next week or two.
I'd like to add a quick plug for Mike O'Brien, whose poem appears in this issue. He is the creator and editor of the blogs Sixty Odd Poems and Sixty Odd Poets, both on Substack. His blogs are brilliantly observed, funny, and end with one of his poems linked to the subject. If you look through the archive you will find the poem The Rucksack, which is a remarkable poem about a highly sensitive subject.
Finally, a word about Paul Iwanyckyj's poem Overshadowing. Not only do I think it's a great poem, it also reminds us that terrible things are still happening in Ukraine, and in Gaza, as we are tending to focus more on our own new government in the UK and the election across the Atlantic.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as I did collating it.
Thanks
Tim Fellows, Editor
Contributors: Matthew Paul, Penny Blackburn, Beth Brooke, Deborah Harvey, Paul Iwanyckyj, Mike O'Brien, Adam Strickson, Ann Christine Tabaka, Tim Taylor, Kris Thain, Richard Wilcocks and Paul Brough.
The Fig Tree Featured Poet – Matthew Paul
Lunchtime at the White Horse
Road Runner, Samuel Beckett’s twin,
meep-meeps at Orville, the guvnor,
for a bottle of Guinness and a fresh glass.
Hogging the pool table and the jukebox,
two Soulboys put on ‘Club Tropicana’
twelve times in a row. In our sixth-form
uniforms, my mates and I, pints and fags
to hand, take turns on the tabletop Pac-Man.
Orville cautions that if the Old Bill tip up,
we’ll need to leg it out the back. Soon
he follows his own judicious advice,
by doing a runner to the Costa del Crime
with the Christmas fortnight’s takings.
If only someone wiser would tell us then
not to spend large slices of our golden lives
pursuing ghosts down stout-black dead ends.
Matthew Paul
Dead of Winter
At dawn, our boots slide the dark, steep path
into Canklow Wood by muscle memory.
Lyn leads the way, or else, she grumbles,
I’d hinder her lightening view. Neither of us
need speak, unless to remark upon changes:
a wind’s-whisper warmer and brighter than
yesterday within the maze of pipe-cleaner birch,
gurning sessile oak and stalwart holly; mud
much firmer after a second consecutive hard frost.
Because walking’s conducive to mind forgetting
mindset; for taking disjunctive leaps in silence.
We sense we’re being tailed—breath on the neck—
by the wood-spirit, boosting the likelihood
of chancing upon our own long-dead. A buzzard
mews and Stukas. We climb back toward the gate.
From up there, Sheffield’s lights kaleidoscope
for miles. Even at this hour, steel mills clatter
and pound. When Lyn’s parents, Pat and Ted,
moved out of earshot of Attercliffe’s perpetual
hammer, they couldn’t sleep soundly for months.
Foresters, tented by the broadleaf canopy, burned
heartwood into charcoal throughout millennia
here, until the moneymen mined the coal-seam
under the crag. Because history has our backs.
Matthew Paul
Pitching the Patter
Mid-December, cold-calling North Wales
vets to flog them space in the Yellow Pages,
I found I had the knack: clocking up sales,
despite veering off-piste from the script.
Jolyon, the graduate manager, cajoled us
to ratchet up our call-rates, but never rang
clients himself. He cock-crowed one morning
that he and his rugby mates breezed the quiz
at the Bricklayers’ Arms the evening before,
though my team had won it; as if defying
me to call him out. Nobody heeded his noise.
I chain-smoked at my desk like everyone else
except pregnant Marina, who bore the brunt
of Jolyon’s pestering. At the Christmas do,
he asked what work I’d look for after uni.
‘Anything,’ I smirked, ‘except telesales.’
Matthew Paul
Matthew Paul was born and grew up in South London and now lives in South Yorkshire. His collection, The Evening Entertainment, was published by Eyewear in 2017. He is also the author of two haiku collections, published by Snapshot Press. He writes reviews and essays and blogs about poetry here.
The Fig Tree Selection – September 2024
This section features up to ten poems, with a maximum of one per poet per issue.
The Lacemaker
inspired by Vermeer’s painting of the same name
You stole a piece of me.
Absorbed in my own art
as you worked yours,
I never felt your skilful fingers
pick the pocket of my soul.
Nor did I feel the loss
at first, but when I saw her,
motionless and yet alive, within
the single moment you carved out for her,
I knew that you had plucked
some morsel of myself to let her live.
You did not ask,
nor, had you done so,
would I have given what you took.
But time brings forgiveness.
My lace has rotted. These hands,
this hair, this flesh – and yours – are dust.
The piece of me you stole lives on.
Tim Taylor
Bottle Alley, Hastings
Stout, Porter, Light Bitter, Lemonade, Soda Lime, Gin:
shattered glass – olive amber, cobalt blue, forest green –
stabbed into concrete that traps the breeze.
But for him these could be gold and silver, precious things
that memorialise that time, that walk with his brother –
that stop at the half-cupola, shingle crash and slur
and beyond the beach the starlit sway of waves.
Night walk, mix of murk and sparkle, and out there
the depths, phosphorescence, where the mysteries are.
*
This is the mystery: they were so close, two brothers
who swam in the icy surf beyond the black huts
ate chips and jewel-towers of knickerbocker glories
may even have held hands against the ghouls
of stale alkies slouched in the pissy shadows,
may even have gazed out to sea together
not knowing the journeys, the twists and turns
that would leave them a world away from each other .
Imagine they’re there still, peeking between the gaps
gladdened by each other’s company, the bottle shine
and the long lower deck of the promenade.
Imagine them singing, in their high, pure trebles –
they reach top Cs, crack tons of coloured glass, laugh.
Things they cannot conceive have yet to arrive –
too many full bottles drunk, rage, work and wreck.
*
Now they are both old huge waves roll between them –
his brother’s body is concrete, shiny angers stabbed into it.
He asks this man of rock and glass, ‘Do you remember nothing?’
His brother stands too still, pearls for his eyes, and stares out,
lost in the swell, sees no olive, cobalt or forest green.
No ‘What shall we do tomorrow?’ No walk to the pirate caves –
just rats in the alley and wind-howl.
Adam Strickson
The Sleeper
He went to bed in the present
and woke up in seventy-four
where the clouds were dramatic and skies were immense
where the sun seemed more golden and much less intense
and the people seemed smaller
and slower
and wise
saw himself as a young boy
and to his surprise
the sight of his mother
brought tears to his eyes
and he wanted to stay there
but had to go back
to the world that had grown over fifty long years
around him
despite him
because of him too -
a world too familiar to me and to you.
He went to bed in the present
and woke up in seventy-four
where the rain-rotted stonework dissolved bit by bit
where so much was squalid and sleazy and shit
and the people seemed leaner
and meaner
and sour
saw himself as a young boy
shake, shiver and cower
at the sight of his father
grim, grizzled and dour
and he wanted to leave
to wake up, to return
to the world he’d assembled
around him since then
softer
and safer
more comfortable too -
a world more familiar to me and to you
Mike O'Brien
I Learn How To Say Horse In British Sign Language
The sculpture shows a horse,
rolling.
I mouth, point:
what is the sign for horse?
for rolling?
Patient, she demonstrates.
I sign horse,
horse rolling.
I want the signs to make
a poem
but my hands lack nuance;
I don’t know how
to channel language
through my whole self.
She smiles, signs to our
facilitator who translates:
She says in BSL you must
become the horse.
I watch as she
becomes the horse,
becomes the power,
becomes the joyfulness of horse,
the beauty of a horse rolling,
becomes the poem.
Beth Brooke
Silent Sands
There is a point, marked with a red snapped spade
(for we dug like demons) a point where frivolous din
ferments; rendering silent the yapping kids and laughing
dogs, a point where a seagull’s screech can deafen.
It’s beyond the lug-holed vestiges, the seaweed-strewn
remnants. It’s beyond the Sally Mae; the barnacled boat
come ship come stranded dream.
It’s in a place between life and a tragic death you’d read
about in a local rag:
“Father and son drowned whilst digging for China”
It’s a point of reluctant return. From there, the factories
are cloud makers, the roof-tops; snowy mountain peaks.
It’s a place to revisit, with a sturdier spade.
Kris Thain
Newport Tip
He tried to be sociable once
in flirty bars with enough strong booze
to loosen tongues and bring forth his lies -
clumsy false anecdotes to amuse.
Scant outcomes saddened so he drank
for courage when things did not improve
when fear of candour barred the way
to real bonds of warmth and love.
Constant dealing with regular spurning
took body and lust to a dreary place
in his anxious thoughts for pariahs
thirsting for a shocking embrace.
Picking cleaner rubbish out from foul
he recalled jeering from his hounded youth
as he put on witch hat and animal mask
and blurted to pylons the awful truth.
Richard Wilcocks
Inspired by ‘Newport Tip’ by photographer Tish Murtha
What the currents of the Skagerrak taught me
By the time the bottle
I’d lobbed into the middle of the North Sea
washed up on a beach in Frederikshavn
and the person who found it told the local paper
and letters written in fluent English by ten-year-old
Danish girls deluged my parents’ doormat
I’d long grown out of
ponies, popstars and penfriends
but what astonished me then
comforts me now
the convolution of tidal cycles
the push and pull of wind and moon
the notion that nothing we leave behind us
is gone forever
Deborah Harvey
Transitional Phase
Capturing images of a forgotten life,
fleeting moments in time.
Lost memories spring forth,
if only for a brief glimpse.
A weaving of past & present
playing games amid the ruins.
We fade
we grasp
we falter.
We are lives in transition.
We step aside for the moment.
Evolving …
There's nothing more.
There's nothing less.
There's nothing we can do to change this.
Ann Christine Tabaka
Irish Stories
In Dublin, the bleeding Christs
have taken us by surprise. We pass
one daily on O’Connell Street,
laugh as we mimic his upturned eyes
and uplifted arms that reach out,
imploring us tourists
to take him into our hearts.
In the low-lit halls of the National Museum,
the Gaelic Kings impress us
with their weighty gold. We hold
our breath against the glass,
try on the torques and collars
inside our heads. Farther in,
a darker place. Leathered flesh
that will not bear the light.
Peat-placed before the kings
put on their crowns,
before the Christ scattered himself
across the globe like splinters
of a cross. Without regal wealth
or holy blood, this quiet body
tells us something else.
Penny Blackburn
Overshadowing
the summer, sport plays on regardless,
shimmering trees sway lazily.
As thunder threatens in the distance
loved ones visit their children's bedsides.
Conversations turn to the day's news
of treatment ahead, of its end,
the precious mundanities of life,
hospital food and home cooking.
Death arrives in the space of a breath
mocking the rules of humanity, of sanity.
Medical staff weep and are wept for.
Disbelief hangs from each collapsed floor.
An arm lies limp from within the rubble
seeking the air of hope
the light of freedom, a parent's touch.
Ironic wrist-tag still attached.
As the angry questioning resounds,
in a shelter nearby the national anthem is sung.
Spirits are dimmed, but shakily shine on,
the shadows pushed aside.
Paul Iwanyckyj
Contributors
Penny Blackburn's poetry has featured in many journals and anthologies, including Spelt, Riggwelter and Phare and she was the winner of Poetry Tyne 2023. She has released her debut collection with Yaffle Press, Gaps Made of Static. She is on X and Facebook as @Penbee8.
Beth Brooke is a retired teacher. She has three poetry pamphlets out there and is a twice nominated poet for the Pushcart Prize. You can visit her website bethbrookepoetry.co.uk
Paul Brough is a Yorkshire based illustrator. You can see more of his artwork here
Deborah Harvey (she/her) lives in Bristol, UK. She has an MA in Creative Writing and is co-director of The Leaping Word, which provides creative and counselling support for writers exploring the personal in their work. Her sixth poetry collection, Love the Albatross, will be published by Indigo Dreams in 2024. Her website is https://theleapingword.com/
Paul Iwanyckyj is a poet and songwriter based in Doncaster. Words have driven his artistic endeavours since schooldays and continue to do so. A member of the poetry group Read to Write, he is the occasional host of Doncaster’s monthly spoken-word night “Well Spoken”. His first pamphlet of poetry “Through A Cracked Mirror” was published by Glass Head Press, in September 2018
Mike O'Brien enjoys writing and performing poetry, some of his work can be found at zoomburst.substack.com. He has also dabbled in publishing other poets, who can be found at sixtyoddpoets@substack.com. His favourite poets include David Bowie and that funny looking chap with the moustache out of Sparks.
Adam Strickson’s first collection, An Indian Rug Surprised by Snow, is published by Wrecking Ball Press. His second, Tear up the lace, with Graft. He is a PhD tutor at the University of Leeds, writer, artist and theatre director, currently involved with projects for Balbir Singh Dance and 6 million+.
Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 & 2023 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year; featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers” 2020 and 2021.
Tim Taylor has published two poetry collections, Sea Without a Shore, and LifeTimes, both with Maytree Press, and two novels. His poems have appeared in magazines such as Acumen, Orbis and Pennine Platform and various anthologies. Tim lives in Meltham near Huddersfield and teaches Ethics part-time at Leeds University - https://wordpress.com/view/timwordsblog.wordpress.com
Kris Thain resides in a seaside town that forgot to close down (Cleethorpes). He web designs by day and enjoys all the good things in life: Writing, Music, and Travel. He has a couple of poems published in The Lighthouse and Snakeskin.
Richard Wilcocks lives in Leeds and is Secretary of Leeds Peace Poetry. Recent poems have appeared in Dreich magazine, And The Stones Fell Open and Whirlagust IV.
All contributors retain copyright of their work.
Good to read. I particularly liked the poems by Deborah and Penny. Yes I had noticed the preponderance of male poets! Good to hear you'll be redressing the balance.