Thought I’d share a poem for #worldpoetryday. This is one that I wrote a few years ago about the way that we sometimes find ourselves living in close proximity to neighbours that we hardly know. This was when we lived down south in a tiny terrace with our two children.
I had formed a collection of poems about motherhood that I was really pleased with but they were rejected by several publishers. I had a nagging sense that they were valid and true to me, though, and I wanted them to exist in the world. That’s when I decided to hand letter a book of these poems.
So just a little encouragement – just because you have been rejected by a publisher (or any other form of rejection) does not mean that your work isn’t valid. It is valid so make it and get it out in the world!
You can find There You Are, a collection of 34 hand lettered poems about motherhood in my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleBirdEditions
Photo by the always amazing @suznolan
Laundry
I stand out amongst the whites in the yard,
still hung up to dry though it is getting dark.
I gather them in, the stone slabs rough and warm beneath my feet.
A hundred voices hum and a few doors slam
at the close of day in this town.
Yellow kitchen light spills across the car park
where the boys from up the road do tricks on their skateboards.
The scrape of their wheels on the tarmac
etches itself into my remembering.
Flotsam nudges up to each back door
leaving unwanted tidelines.
Things heard around here cannot be unheard.
Everyone knows what goes on, but still,
when they wake, in the cold morning light,
they prowl around the edges of their property,
guarding their lives, their small secrets.
And I mine, I suppose,
for behind this blue gate,
and beyond this tatty yard,
within this see-through house,
as frail as a skeleton,
are all my life’s treasures.
#writersofinstagram #worldpoetryday #creativecall #instapoet #keepwriting #dontgiveup
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elisabeth pike 