Before we Breathe

Welcome to my new poetry collection! It's my third and I am still a bit staggered that I managed to find a publisher and get another book out so soon. But here we are.

This poetry has nothing to do with lockdown or pandemic (people keep asking me, because of the title I guess). Many of the poems were written before that even started. Indeed, many were written even before my second collection, Breakfast in Bed was published in Autumn 2019.

Before we Breathe has been in my head as a collection of poems for a long time. Its subject matter is very close to my heart and it has taken me a while to put it all together.

Officially published on April 5th, 2021, by the very appropriately named Littoral Press, the book is available now direct from me. See info about ordering at the bottom of this blog.

The poems are mainly inspired by the beaches and coastline of west Wales where I live, and my love of sea swimming, but there’s more to it than that, as always!

This description is from the cover text: “These poems carry voices that speak of both the magic and realism of nature. They are rooted in a particular place and time, yet come from everywhere and tell of shifting shapes through millennia, both material and imagined.  From the sea, where all life originated, to soil and woodland and eventually to stone, these words weave through margins of time and space to tell stories of transformation. 

“The collection is structured with several poems in the voice of a particular character (Sibyl of the Cwm) who appears at intervals with her own magical-realist poem-tales.”

So, nature and the ocean, our relationship as human beings with earth and sea, all run through with threads of transformation.

I would love to do proper live readings to launch the book, and I do plan some, but they will have to wait until summer when Covid rules allow and when we can have events outside -- on beaches and in the coastal lands that I write about in these poems.

Dates will be announced as and when these come up. In the meantime I’ll be sharing some of the poems via this blog and my Facebook page, and if you want one, you can get a copy of the book now...

Before we Breathe is published by Littoral Press. Copies are now available by mail order direct from me. (Payment by PayPal or cheque, £10 including post and packing to UK addresses). Orders can be emailed to:  jackienews@hotmail.co.uk  which is also my PayPal link. Please choose the PayPal ‘friends’ option, and include your full postal address in your email.

Here's a sample poem from the collection:

How she calls 

She thirsts for me

and she calls,

 

whispers my name –

come dance,

 

sometimes loud –

come dive,

 

sometimes soft –

come breathe.

 

Lapping with little splashings

to suggest, persuade,

 

she draws the undertow

so I feel the overthrow

 

arriving and departing

leaving and returning,

 

spreading her susurration

far away and close by

 

turn by turn

tide by tide

 

surge and suck,

pull in, come swim,

 

dance in me,

so calls the mother sea.

(First published in Visual Verse, Oct 2017)

 

 

Paying attention close to home

The Dulais, south Ceredigion

Not a poetry post!

I don’t keep a regular journal record of my daily ‘lockdown walks’, I usually just post a photo or two of a scene or plant, but today’s was one I feel the need to record. Today’s photos were unremarkable, but the walk was not, nor were the sitings of many birds and animals.

I live on the side of a hill above the little valley of Cwm Dulais in south Ceredigion. There are other Dulais valleys in Wales, notably the one just north of Neath, which features a number of former coal mining communities along its course.

‘My’ Dulais is a small tributary of the Teifi. It starts life just south of Sarnau travels a few miles, mostly through farmland from north to south to join the Ceri (a stunningly beautiful valley)  near Brongest. The Ceri then travels on to join the Teifi at Cwm Cou, near Newcastle Emlyn. The farms on this route mostly raise sheep, and there are beef cattle and some dairy. Fields tend to be small sizes and there are many good hedgerows.

During lockdown my daily walks all begin and end at home, so the Dulais has become an important part of my life. Whichever circular route I take I usually cross this stream it at least twice. Today, I went a little further downstream than usual, making a longer route. It’s a quiet Sunday, not too cold, just a breeze from the north west, sunshine coming through thin cloud now and again.

I met a few other walkers, a couple of runners, a woman riding a horse, a car or two, but mostly I saw farmstock, birds and other wildlife, which is the main reason I wanted to make this record. I hope I can remember them all:

In farm fields and yards I saw many sheep (I heard early lambs but didn’t get a sight of them), some horses, donkeys, llama or alpaca (not sure which), goats.

Wild animals I saw included:

Heron, long-tailed tits, many blackbirds, robins and other garden-type birds, such as bluetit and chaffinch. They are starting to get their colours ready for spring.  I saw a couple of red kite, heard buzzards call.

We know there are foxes, badgers and otters around this valley too. And in the summer I watched a dipper by the bridge at lower Dulais.

But the true star of my two-hour walk today was a goldcrest. I’d never seen one up close before and as soon as I spotted it flitting about in the woody hedge I stood as still as I could in the lane. It came very close, flew towards me a couple of times, then settled on a nearby branch and we looked at each other. He was only a yard away from me. A tiny bird with stunning markings, and a moment I will never forget.

I know I am lucky to live here in beautiful countryside. By paying close attention to the area within a two or three mile radius of home I have discovered so much that I would not have seen before, but for lockdown,  even though I have lived here for many years.
 

Goldcrest (regulus regulus)

Early morning mist in the valley

Returning

 

 A poem for Remembrance Day   

Returning

For now at last I know

That there is no escape

(Alun Lewis, ‘The Sentry’)

 

For how do you learn how to breathe again

                           after years of holding?

Your mind full of mud and shit

you stand by the cliff edge among an abundance of thrift,

the mass of pink splits your brain like a mortar shell,

lightning strikes your heart

so hard it burns ventricles.

 

For you have longed for this moment –

clear sky, fresh sea air.

 

Breathe in     hold     out     pause     repeat.

 

Your nose and ears still clogged with dirt and dust

but you hear the roar of waves below

over the bombardment that echoes in your head.

 

Salty brine of Irish Sea air penetrates

the fog of gas and stink of the rotten trench

as you wait to scramble over.

Smoke and barbed wire, the bullet hail attack,

bloody limbs flying, brains and guts scattered.

 

in      hold     out     pause    repeat.

 

Shouts and screams. Your mates’ eyes staring up

through drifting ochre smoke.

Nothing looks at nothing.

 

Life was finished, tears rain all down your face.

You peer over the edge

see red rocks pummelled by surf frothing far below,

blood bubbling from a blown-apart throat.

 

How do you come home?

Will this wide open space sometime bring peace?

 

Breathe  in      hold     out     pause   repeat.

 

How do you learn to live again?

Remember to breathe freely?

         If you want to keep breathing.

 

For the pinks are only grey, the sky steel,

the sea rutted iron, the path a trench

                                        and death lives in you.

 

Breathe in     hold     out           pause …

©JackieBiggs2020