Sunday Poem – Emily Blewitt

Evening folks.  The Sunday posts are going to be a bit shorter on here for the next month because as part of my role as Digital Poet in Residence I will be posting extracts from my logbook – which will also have diary type entries – so  a lot of what I would normally put here, is going up there next week sometime, if you get my meaning!  So this post will be brief but you can catch up on all my gossip over at The Poetry School http://campus.poetryschool.com/

Next Wednesday the Poetry School are having a Digital Open Day and I’ll be taking part in a live webchat with Amy Wack from Seren, Neil Astley from Bloodaxe and Hannah Lowe, Bloodaxe poet extraordinaire about publishing a first collection, so if you have any questions you would like to ask, send them through to me and hopefully we will be able to fit them in.    There is also a chance to post your poems online from 7pm and get some instant(ish) feedback from 7pm if you join the CAMPUS group ‘Show Us Your Poems’…

Other things happening this week – the Wordsworth Trust summer reading series starts Tuesday May 6th with Fleur Adcock and local poet Neil Curry reading.  There is also an amazing workshop with Mimi Khalvati happening on the 24th May at the Wordsworth Trust – this is a rare opportunity to attend a workshop with an amazing poet and tutor – I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who has been to a Mimi Khalvati workshop and doesn’t sing her praises – they do need a minimum number to run the workshop so if you were thinking about it and haven’t got yourself in gear – get organised!  You can book online at https://wordsworth.org.uk/attend-events/2014/05/24/workshop-the-short-lyric-with-mimi-khalvati.html

Today’s Sunday Poet is Emily Blewitt who is a lovely poet that I met a couple of weeks ago on the residential course at Grange Over Sands.  Emily is a fantastic writer who is based in Cardiff and she was writing some fantastic poems on the course.  I really liked this poem about a bear – as I’m writing, am wondering if I have a soft spot for bear poems that I didn’t know about, as this is the second bear poem that has been the Sunday Poem.  Anyway, I think this poem is very delicate – the way the lines step down one after the other and the poem manages to conjure up exactly what the bear looks like.  I like the bear that would ‘shrink to the shape of a sack’ – the bear is the active agent, it will shrink, it will emerge all ‘eyes and teeth’, it ‘snatches’ fish and then ‘carefully keeps her ears dry’ – lots of lovely description in the poem.

Emily Blewitt was born in Carmarthen in 1986.  She has published poetry in Cheval (Parthian: 2012, 2013), Nu2: Memorable Firsts (Parthian: 2011), and in Brittle Star (2011). Her poetry appears online in Pomegranate, Cadaverine, Bolts of Silk and The Guardian poetry workshop. Emily won the 2010 Cadaverine/Unity Day Competition with her poem ‘Still Life’, and was selected as Honno’s ‘Poet of the Month’ in September 2012. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 4′s ‘Lost Voices’ programme to discuss the work of Anne Ridler. She is studying for a PhD in English Literature at Cardiff University.  Her blog can be found at www.emilyblewitt.wordpress.com

I hope you enjoy the poem!

Giving – Emily Blewitt

I give you, this:
cold, hard earth;
the bear beneath

who would shrink to the shape of a sack
to let one cub breathe
in winter,

and, come thaw, emerge
all eyes and teeth,
head for water.

There: watch her
snatch from the air
a fish, mid-leap.

See how carefully
she keeps her ears dry.