The PK Featured Poet - Christina Fletcher

"On the whole, I like sharp, spare writing that rings true." - Christina Fletcher


Although she has not been writing for long Christina has made an impression with her work. Her comments have always been considerate and informed, while her own writing has shown power and maturity.


Featured Poet 4 - Christina Fletcher

I was born in Germany in 1947. My mother was Dutch and my father English. My earliest years were spent in Germany, Holland and England. I took a degree and postgraduate degree in Fine Art at Camberwell and then The Slade School of Art, University College London. I came from a poor background but my father joined the Diplomatic Service when I was sixteen. This gave me the opportunity to live in vastly different societies both from the social and cultural points of view. I married, divorced (though I worked under my married name until two years ago) and paid the rent by working full-time for the British Council. In 1983 I went to India and registered as an occasional student in the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University, Baroda. When I came back to the UK I worked as a freelance guide to overseas academics and artists on British Council programmes. In 1995 I started working as a full-time freelance artist, painting portraits and carving sacred inscriptions and poetry in slate and stone.

How/when did you start writing? Was there anything that particularly influenced you?

I started writing seventeen months ago. I'd been carving one of Moulana Jalaluddin Rumi's poems and had just worked out how to use the internet. I tapped in 'Poetry' and came up with PK. My head was full of sacred texts and Rumi. I wrote an appalling poem and posted it. It's quite likely that I wouldn't have written anything at all if it hadn't been for the list. I haven't been able to stop writing since.

Do you have any strong influences on your writing now?

I'm not consciously aware of any strong influences on my writing other than the comments I receive from writers whose work I either admire or respect. I try to apply the discipline and ruthlessness I know is necessary in painting to writing but I'm painfully aware that I'm a floundering beginner with many drafts but few 'finished' poems. I'm fond of Carol Ann Duffy, Stevie Smith and Osip Mandelstam today, but what I like depends on my needs at the time. My desert island choice of book would be the facsimile and transcript of the original drafts of The Waste Land (with Ezra Pound's annotations). On the whole, I like sharp, spare writing that rings true.

How do you write? Do you have any particular method for writing - time of day?

Like a blind person crossing the motorway waving a white stick. I cross the road whenever I can and often when I shouldn't.

Why do you write poetry?

Because it's incredibly difficult and exciting. I feel like a child with a new toy.


The Poems

Lil was a model when I was at art school. She'd been an artist herself, apparently a very good one but she was quite disturbed and couldn't carry on painting. She could only pose in painful positions. I heard recently that she'd died. This poem is my memory of her.
 
~~~
Lil
~~~ 
 
Not much to show:
one strong drawing
'Lil Screaming'.  
 
Not screaming really:
keeping her mouth open, rigid
for an hour at a stretch
tasting pain to feel alive.
 
'Break, Lil.'  
 
Lil naked
puffing bull-like
shaking out the stiffness
warming raw, chewed fingers
on a mug of sticky-sweet tea.  
 
Lil and Billy in a squat
feeding fire with cardboard.  
 
'Best meal I ever had
was from a bin
at the back of the Savoy.
All sorts. I thought it was Christmas.
Everything all mixed up. Lovely, Lil.
Wish you'd been with me, girl.'  
 
Lil laughing
showing her palms to the flames
coughing up paper smoke.  
 
Everything, all mixed up:
laughter from a toothless mouth
smoke through a dirty straw
firelight on scarred wrists
Lil screaming.
 
 

 
I wrote this when I was feeling incredibly sad about friends who have simply disappeared. August is the time when journalists take their holidays and news dries up. I tried to describe an internal and external withdrawal from reality. Makasib prison is alongside the road connecting Baghdad to its international airport.
 
~~~~~
News
~~~~~
 
It was in August that news ceased to exist. News --
The News -- no executions in Makasib, no floods in Mozambique.
Chechnya : Groznyy is still intact, people go about their business,
shop, cook, make love, have sex.
 
Outside everything is almost silent. Only
the dull rap of rain, traffic and the flight path overhead.
When Concord roars I look up for a moment, watch her nose
penetrate and disappear in dark clouds.
 
It's good to snuggle in my Iraqi robe, to smoke,
drink coffee, tap at the keyboard and watch the pixels
appear on the monitor like excellent armies of ants.
I am mesmerised by pixels. They dance for me.  
 
I am reminded of Zouhair: how we cooked lunch,
smoked nargili, brewed red tea, danced and wept when Fairuz sang
"Jerusalem in my Heart", "Hope of my Life": "Amal Hyaati".
I have no tears now. They make no difference.
 
 
 
________________________________________________________
 
I think I wrote this after looking in the mirror one morning.
 
~~~~~ 
crisis
~~~~~ 
 
o god
a crow's foot on my face
chastisement for years of laughter
o lancôme reinvented anti-ageing system
niosôme + how can I keep a straight face
if I crease up reading your label?
 
 
 
_______________________________________________________________
 
We always spent the summer in Holland when I was a child. The Occupation was fresh in everyone's memory and the Germans weren't exactly popular but Zandvoort was the nearest seaside resort for many Germans. I loved Holland and my family but switching language was a pain in the throat.
 
~~~~~~~~~ 
gghh-schh
~~~~~~~~~
 
When we were children, staying with my Oma,
we travelled in baskets strapped to a bicycle,
spokes sparkle-spinning, all the way to Zandvoort:
a blonde beach stretching the whole length of Holland
where stalls sold raw herring and bright yellow cucumber.
 
Whole days spent on a beach of jolly Germans
who dug deep fortresses, engineered castles,
stripped stark naked, basked in their deck chairs,
bit into Bratwurst, guzzled out of beer steins
and drove off to camping sites in Volkswagen Beetles.
 
Oma had a cardboard horn shaped like a cornet
and I would holler hymns into it all about Jesus:
how it was my destiny to be a little sunbeam
so that I could shine for Him with pure clear light
(through the smoke of clipped cigars which billowed from my Opa).
 
I still recall the smell of frites piled with piccalilli,
the quiver of the jellyfish stranded on the tideline,
the taste of golden biscuits baked with cinnamon and ginger,
the wheeze of Oma's asthma, the scratch of sandy bathing suits --
but most of all the language which sounds like an affliction...
 
 
 
______________________________________________________________
 
The last two poems were written for my mother.
 
~~~~~
Soon,  
~~~~~
 
we must scatter your ashes.
We'll do it together, alone
on that grey coast
where sea and sky
paint a flat, dry canvas.  
 
I remember your story about Opa
walking all night
to steal field potatoes;
and Oma: how she taught a goldfish
to take food from her hand.  
 
Tell me the colour of your dress
in this faded photo.
The old aunt in Amsterdam:
what was her name?  
 
We forget to feed your birds.
When spring comes
the blackbird won't nest in our garden,
bring fledglings to your kitchen.  
 
Every day there's a new, small death:
I unfold your letters,
open the lid you closed,
add the last grains of your salt
to stale, tasteless food.  
 
The quilt you stitched is torn
but I can't repair it:
my fingers are clumsy,
my eyes blur.
 

~~~~~~~~
Windfalls
~~~~~~~~
 
I carried you for the first time,
wrapped in my arms
as if you were a child.
 
A horse passed by on First Avenue:
clip-clop, clip-clop; the swish
of his long tail. I remembered
 
clutching cubes of sugar,
how you'd said, "Just hold your hand out
flat and still."
 
Coming to coastal grass
we saw crows and gulls cruise
on pockets of cold, November air.
 
We scattered you seaward
thinking you'd fly east, across the North Sea,
to Holland, where you were born.
 
You turned westward,
brisk and wilful in the breeze,
back to our home
 
leaving my father
in a blur of light
and ash.
 
That night I woke at 3am.
Moonlight bathed my pillow,
lit the bullace path where once
we gathered windfalls.

 

 
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