Graham Burchell

FISHING ZAMBIA'S WILD WEST

Where did we fish? How far did we tow

beer, boat, food and tent? I cannot recall

a first glimpse of the river, or its name.

Did we ever learn it?

I don't remember pitching canvas,

only lumps under its floor at night.

My mind pictures the anonymous river

from the way it carried us,

not as it was seen from its banks, except,

when being the season of rain, a storm crept up,

forced us to an edge; one, where wetter than fish

we pulled ashore at a bare place under trees.

We joked about damp circumstance until

disbelief when K.C. danced for biting ants -

and the other man, what was his name -

with a bark in his laugh?

The rain rattled;

shoved fingers between the branches.

Ants in a great rain I could not conceive,

yet they found me too, so I knew the snips

of tiny pincers that helped themselves

to my calves and thighs.

There, memory clouds -

reopens on bright fish strung through gills

close to bewildered eyes - round, like currency

for the bribe at a road-block on our return.

I've read this collection with huge enjoyment, over the last two nights, and am now completely absorbed into your memories of Africa. I loved it. It seems to me to do exactly what poetry does best, tell a story and draw its readers into a landscape, rather like a large photo album without photos, but with pictures of emotions that add up to all sorts of feelings that can't begin to be described in prose. I feel it's almost a non-language book and, right or wrong, I have a very clear idea of what your life there must have been like.
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> I'm so grateful to have it, thank you very much.
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> And by the way, I especially loved the descriptions of the millipede, we have a slightly smaller version in Jamaica, and I always remember how strange it was having it curled up into a tight little ball.

Caroline Carver

Congratulations, it's a well-crafted, sensitive and impressive collection. I'm interested by the note on your website indicating that the poems are an exploration of 'the alien' - certainly that's how they worked for me. Since I am a most timid and hesitant traveller, they gave me the opportunity to vicariously explore the environment and activities of a strange place, together with the emotions it aroused - you definitely brought it alive for me.

Elaine Miller

Latest…

For five days across the Festival weekend eight writers gather in Stromness to work together with course director Pamela Beasant and Co-tutor Jen Hadfield, with an emphasis on poetry writing. They will have a session with Festival Poet Christopher Reid and reveal some of their work publicly in the Poems with tunes, tea and cake event in Stromness Hotel on Sunday 23 June - Event 17. They will also work in collaboration with the student composers from the St Magnus Composers' Course including a joint public session on Friday 21 June from 14.00 - 17.00 with Alison Wells in the Peedie Kirk, Kirkwall.

Monday, April 15th, learned that I have been invited to be one of the eight.

POETRY DAY 20th April 2013

Courtesy of Torbay Poetry Festival and Acumen Literary Journal

Brixham Theatre Coffee Lounge 10.00am - 3.45pm

Workshop: The Poetry of Stillness

With Graham Burchell 10.00am - 12.30pm

Writers' Workshop with Devon Poets Graham Burchell, Simon Williams and Susan Taylor - 2pm, Friday 7th June At Cornish Delicacies, 6-8 Church Street. Followed by a poetry reading in St Mary's Church at 3.30pm. Workshop £3, no charge for the reading.

PENZANCE LITERARY FESTIVAL 17th--21st July

A Star-Studded Line-Up!

* * Angela France * * Graham Burchell * * Ruth O'Callaghan and other well-known poets

The 2013 Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition

is under way again, and as last year's winner I will be one of the three judges. To enter go to http://www.canterburyfestival.co.uk/learning-and-participation/festival-poet-of-the-year.aspx