12 June: Simmonds, Jones, Williams

Tuesday 12th June, 8pm, CB1 Cafe, Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions

KATHRYN SIMMONDS was born in Hertfordshire in 1972 and now lives in north London where she works as an editor. She won the 2006 Poetry London competition, her pamphlet Snug came out recently from Smith Doorstop, and her first collection will be published next year.

On the Day that you were Born
The angels got together and decided to create
a dream come true.
Sorry, no, that wasn’t you.
On the day that you were born
it rained incessantly.
Three potholers were carried to their deaths
by flashfloods in north Wales.
In Manchester a man came home
and set about his wife
with woodwork tools.
Everywhere the sky was dark by four o’clock.
There might have been an air disaster too -
in fact there was,
two hundred people dropped into a field.

HUW JONES was born in Birmingham in 1973 to Welsh parents. He moved first to Manchester, then to Cambridge in 1997. His poetry has been published in Coffee House Poetry, Anon, and more recently in Poetry Wales. A selection of his work appeared in Seren Selections, published by Seren in 2006.

Beneath the apple tree

Reduce: we must guess nothing still,
as if there were a store diminished,
this, my final thing for her:
crouch and fill my hands with water,
push them to her slack white lips
beneath the high white arch of fever,

smudged, her face a mushroom pulse,
lost to sweat. The fields are powder,
standing at the wood's grey edge
standing with my back towards her;
what she hopes for does not answer,

now that she is gone and summer over
I must lay my long white back
into the longer grass
beneath the apple tree
and listen to the river;
learn to trust my hands
to welcome back my autumn thoughts,
an awkward cousin, waiting strict
against the weather,
thinking, is it now?


DEBBIE (KEARAN) WILLIAMS was born in Flintshire, North Wales in 1960. She now lives in Cottenham, and works in Cambridge as a librarian. Under the name Kearan Williams, her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Critical Quarterly, and she has been a Bridport prizewinner.

Tremor

‘I immediately took up my pencil to record for the Reverend Johnson the strange shiftings of the world this Friday last.’

Reverend, the weather has been perfectly calm,
though an hour ago, I thought I heard a door slam in the yard.
The moon was up, lighting the ships at Glan-y-Don —
(I have no recollection what shape was the moon);

there had been ice. It slipped from the roof,
the creak of thaw discerned across the quiet of the night.
I fancied I heard — a thunderbolt? a rupture of the air?
(Peg says a rough hand shook her awake.)

The walls of my room trembled with urgency,
the candle slid to the counterpane — I quickly snuffed it out.
I, who was in my bed, was frequently moved up and down,
my head was filled with hot breath, singing in my ears,

and the bed, having castors, removed a small space
while I gripped the mattress, Reverend. Some say these phenomena
are but surface instability — I shall not know till morning
what sights may yet greet us in this once neutral tract.

Will the bodies of our pit men be pitched again in the tree tops?

Lines 11 and 13 come from Thomas Pennant’s History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell, 1796.

Open Mic at CB1 - Tuesday 22 May, 8pm

Come along and sign up to read on arrival. Bring 2-3 poems (no epics please!) in case we have time for more than one each. There will be aprize for the poem/poet voted 'best on the night'!

Whether you are an experienced reader or have never read a poem in public before, please do support these Open Mic evenings. They are intriguing, unpredictable and an opportunity for anyone to read in front of a supportive and welcoming audience.

Over the last ten years CB1 Open Mics have provided the initial platform from which many talented writers and poets have progressed to 10-15 minute slots supporting our visiting/guest poets - and from there on to publication and wider recognition. Helen Mort is just one recent example. You never know -you may find yourself listening to other stars of the future!

£3/£2 concessions