Resistance is Fertile

 

 

 

POETRY may not change the world, but some of it may affect the way some people feel about what is going on. And sharing our feelings about the issues of the day – climate emergency, politics, wars, social injustice, poverty, identity – helps us survive the anxiety and brings us together to work towards change.

That’s the basic philosophy behind the Narberth Poets’ Poetry as Protest Exhibition, ‘Resistance is Fertile’, which is getting its third outing this May.

I am proud to be one of the Narberth Poets – six writers from Pembrokeshire – Bean Sawyer, Jane Campbell, Christian Donovan, Emma Baines and Jean Riley. We believe that through poetry we can sow the seeds of social change and inspire others to challenge the status quo. And taking poetry off  the page and onto walls and into public spaces as artwork brings it to new audiences.

Resistance is Fertile, an exhibition of protest poetry as art, opens at SPANarts in Narberth on Wednesday, May 6. The show, which features poems and linked artwork ini varied forms, is on until June 3^rd – and is open daytimes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for free viewing.

See links below for more info.

The six poets have created new pieces for the exhibition since it was first shown at Narberth Museum last summer and at Oriel y Parc in St Davids earlier this year. Innovative artworks incorporating their words include cyanotypes, printing on metal, weaving, collage, photography, linocut and oil painting.

Comments on the earlier exhibitions included the following:

“Such a powerful exhibition – don’t miss it. Poetry as protest – by a collective of wonderful poets from Pembrokeshire. Poetry as resistance against silence – and such beauty too – bearing witness - a reminder of what is happening in Gaza." Professor Emerita Menna Elfyn, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David and President of Wales PEN Cymru.

“The exhibition is really powerful and very moving. I had to sit there for a while to let it all land; the poems did what poems should -- brought me up short.”  Kate Sherringer, North Pembs Amnesty Group. 

“Thought-provoking work, from some excellent poets... Great variety, too, in the visual art forms.” Diana Powell, writer.

From visitors writing in the Book of Wishes: “Such a powerful exhibition. Beautiful and moving.”  “Every time I come I read one or two poems each time. They give me more.”

“Thank you for the opportunity to pause, think and reflect.”

More info: https://span-arts.org.uk/poetry-as-protest-art-exhibition-at-span-arts/

More about the Narberth Poets here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578271421374

and here: https://narberthpoets.wordpress.com/

Culture Matters article and pix, Oriel y Parc exhibition: https://www.culturematters.org.uk/poetry-as-protest-resistance-is-fertile-opens-at-oriel-y-parc/

Interview and poetry readings, Pure West Radio , Sunday, May 3^rd, 9am, Arts Show with Alexandra Walsh: https://www.purewestradio.com/catch-up/  

 

 

 

For the record

A bit of a catch-up… I just want to make a record of where things are with this Spaces in Between blog today. It has had over 250,000 hits since it was first published 2012, and the figures have increased massively in the last couple of years, even though I post infrequently. That is about to change! 

Readers are from all over the world, in the last fourteen years most hits have come from the USA, then Singapore, Hong Kong, UK, Brazil, Germany, Vietnam, Russia, France, Sweden, China, Israel and Ukraine. I’m please there are readers in all these places and many more. 

Nearly all the posts on here are poems of mine, either published here because I didn’t think I’d get them published in any mainstream poetry magazines or anywhere else, or because I was fortunate enough to get them published in those places and I wanted to record that. And there are many that were time sensitive because they related to current affairs, and the blog allows for immediate postings.

The most popular post on this site is still ‘The Power of You’, which was first published here in 2013 and went around the world in great numbers straight away. It is shown here in a new form, with a study I did in art class (oil on canvas). This will be part of a public exhibition of poetry as art, that I am staging in collaboration with other poets and artists this summer.

Until about three years ago I was still submitting my work and aiming to get published in poetry magazines and anthologies, and in online journals too, with some success. Also, I have three books of my own poetry published, and another on the way, probably next year. But as well as publishing in print and on here, I have gradually come to the view that I want to get poetry more ‘out there’ in the world, maybe even to more people who say they ‘don’t read poetry’.  Developing and sharing this blog is part of that, and so is my continued passion for the spoken word, for taking part in live events in all kinds of venues. (That’s for another post sometime).

 It’s not only my own poetry I want to get ‘out there’, it’s all poetry really. In collaboration with five other poets locally we put together a Poetry as Protest exhibition, titled Resistance is Fertile, which was staged at venues in south west Wales over last summer and earlier this year. I’ll blog more about this in another (yet another!) post later, as a new exhibition is upcoming in May. And we have further plans take our work very much into our local communities, and to engage local people more too, but enough said on that for now.

Look out for new posts about new adventures – and how you might be able to get involved – over the next months. And if you are one of the regular readers of The Spaces in Between, thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy what you find here.

Here's the text of that poem:

The power of you

In the still quiet centre of you

are all the mountains and valleys

all the streams, rivers,

peaceful lakes and raging oceans,

all the forests and plains of this Earth.

In the still quiet centre of you

are the sun and moon

and all the planets and stars

of the universe forever.

In the still quiet centre of you

is all the love there ever was

in all the world through all time.

 

In the still quiet centre of you.

 

 

 

Fire horse

 

Here's one to celebrate the Chinese year of the fire horse which begins this week. The poem has been around for a good while, but seems appropriate to share it now.

Fire horse

Outside,

a spark jumps,

a thread catches the arc,

flame grows, drops, disappears.

Hold your breath.

Wait.

 

A thin smoke-strand weaves upward,

orange tongue rises,

tastes air;

fire takes hold.

 

Flares erupt  –

angry, flaming breath

ignites the notion 

and

 

a blazing stallion breaks away

across the plain,

eyes flashing, hooves crashing in sparks,

fire trailing from his mane.

 

No surprise there

 

You think nothing surprises you

anymore      and then   

                   a hellebore opens

 

or a frog pops up     in the pond     or

                a robin hops    to     your   hand     or

     Netanyahu      bans aid agencies     from

Gaza         and            the West Bank

where people   survive      only just   

             in floods     debris     tents

 There are moments      when   you    are   so

                               surprised

         you can’t find any           words

    or not yet  ….

 

Pic: SkyNews

 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1evp7weyv2o

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/israeli-ban-on-aid-agencies-gaza-catastrophic-consequences

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-suspends-37-aid-organisations-from-operating-in-gaza-13488815

 

 

Haworth Moor

 

Haworth Moor

  

Up there on the way to the bleak moor

I can breathe in the heart of the land

and I can see the ruins of the house

 

on the bulk of the hill’s shoulder,

way ahead, way up.

And the house is the goal, but the game is the moor,

 

heather and ling, and fresh north wind,

sphagnum moss and peat bogs.

And it’s cold, but it’s open country like my heart

 

and I can feel clear air in my body

and I can hear her voice

on the wind as it swirls around

 

and calls me up and further up.

Nothing in sight but stone walls following

contours and lone trees spaced along a ridge

 

and I can see the old house

far away, nearly at the top,

and a couple of bent trees to the side

 

… and that voice again, calling;

and the raven too

and I breathe hard as I climb

 

the steep side from the bridge.

And when I reach the house

its tumbledown walls and blank windows

 

look out over the moors and back down to the stream.

I am miles from home

and I can go anywhere from here, be anyone.

 

There is nothing to hold me,

and there is everything.