06 Jul

Posted at 13:48h in Poetry, Uncategorised
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  I came into your room today, to work here while you are at school. I found the perfect place to sit, back between the handles of your chest of drawers. The sun lights up squares of carpet and I can see the Linden tree coming into bud through the window.  I want to be near to your exploratory, feeling-everything-energy.  In a week I feel dull, drab and weary I want the newness  and very present complications you feel to imprint on me and my work.   By Elli Johnson   A poem written while sitting in my (then) 16 year old daughter's bedroom on the floor looking at the changing light. My eldest...

06 Jul

Posted at 13:47h in Poetry
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  I wrote my first poem at 37 The age my father was when he  moved us lock stock and barrel from one port city to another.   I thought I’d feel older. Wiser. More in control of the minutes of my days. But the truth appears to me through fog still unexpected and unrehearsed. A line of characters falling from the  clouds, brought on the wind, delivered complete and without announcement.   By Elli Johnson   An early poem, about the nature of poetry and life and how I thought being a grown up would feel different to how it is....

06 Jul

Posted at 13:47h in Poetry
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  In this world Don't ask me to be a man For what I do, he cannot.   I carry the new. An idea, a metaphor, a life. My heart breaks, my muscles tear my bones shift from their moorings To hold this treasure To bring this life to birth.   By Elli Johnson     Some poems arrive slowly in dribs and drabs, other arrive already fully formed. This poem was the latter kind. I wrote it a number of years ago and often re-share it for International Women's Day. It plays with the idea of childbirth but is about much more than that....