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River Wolton

• Publisher: Smith|Doorstop Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781906613235
• eBook ISBN: 9781906613464
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

River Wolton grew up in London and lived in Sheffield for twenty years before moving to Derbyshire. She is a freelance writer and facilitator, and was Derbyshire Poet Laureate 2007-9. This is her first fulllength collection.

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River Wolton

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the editors of the following, in which some of these poems, or earlier versions, first appeared:
ARTEMISpoetry, Chroma, Dreamcatcher, Lancaster LitFest Anthology 2005, Magma, Mslexia, The North, Rain Dog, Red Pepper, Smiths Knoll, Staple, Templar Anthologies 2006 and 2007.

'Everything I know about war' won first prize in the Red Pepper / Iraq Occupation Focus Poetry Competition 2004. 'Return' won first prize in the Chroma International Queer Writing Competition 2008. 'The Purpose of Your Visit' was published as a sequence in Magma.

'Blame' is part of a sequence commissioned by Derbyshire County Council Cultural and Community Services for Holocaust Memorial Day 2008.

Some poems were previously published in The Purpose of Your Visit (Smith/Doorstop) andYou Are Here: Travels of a Derbyshire Poet Laureate (Derbyshire County Council).

The Underground Orchestra (1998) is a documentary directed by Heddy Honigmann.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Contents

You Are Here
‘On the road out of the woods, we met’
To the Island
Sorry
Note To Self
Republic of Sleep
On days like these
Thrill
What You Did
Sierra Nevada
Reconciliation
Gold
The Way We’ve Grown Apart
When She Ran
London Bomb 1975
Summer ’76
Driving to Aldeburgh
Architecture
Fedora
Seymour Baths
Double Pneumonia
Sheffield – St Pancras
The Underground Orchestra
Ashes
True Ages
Leap
August
Marin County
Misanthrophile
To Teeth
Heroes
At The Gym
It’s everything you want from the end of Finals
Dying Well, An Experiment
Blame
Everything I know about war
Witness
Sabir

The Purpose of your Visit

Old City

Etiquette

Statistics

The Visit

Departures 4.30 a.m.

‘You didn’t mean to let fear in’
The Road
Well Dressing
Guilt
Like Driving in Fog
Snow Mind
3.44 a.m.
Return

Biography

You Are Here

The sign points firmly south. Hathersage B6001.

It's wrong. That is the Bakewell road. We glare,

imagine Easter visitors, a Scottish family en route to Derby

frowning, with a quarry wagon at their back,

the primary school about to spill across the lane like sheep.

Should we leave a note

pinned high as we can reach?

Warning. You are not where you seem.

Today we're here. I feel it in the way

we amble through the house,

the path the sun makes on the kitchen floor,

hours like a slowly rolling ball.

I'm down to leeks chopped fine, half-hearted DIY;

your arms slip round me as I wash the pots.

Despite my well-worn maps

we're here, wherever that may be

and here is moving with us as we go.

'On the road out of the woods, we met.'

On the road out of the woods, we met.

She wore a cashmere coat,

a silk-lined hunting hat.

Once home she sat in the best chair

but soon was everywhere -

door handles, envelopes.

She took control of faces.

I got to know her well.

She has twelve kinds of scimitar,

long red gloves,

a shelf of glittering prizes.

Sometimes I find her in my skin,

my hand stuck on a set of cards

with no match

and no letting up.

When we're alone I pace,

or simply stand

because she grasps my feet

until the blood is stopped

and anything

that could have happened next

is augered

with her pointed silver teeth.

To The Island

Fingers prod each syllable

as Janet and John row bravely

from shore.

My shoes are stowed

in a brown bag

by the door.

There's been a drill.

The upper school has clattered

down the fire escape.

They're lined up

on the smooth stretch

of forbidden lawn.

I'm stuck on Is-land.

All she says is No and

Try once more.

Sorry

When the first Sorry

took shape

and left her mouth,

it hardly made a mark.

She hadn't put much into it.

Say Please. Please.

Say Sorry. Sorry.

The second Sorry was larger.

She'd seen how Sorry worked.

It was barely prompted:

Look what you've done.

She cut a sliver of herself

to offer with the word

and buy her peace.

But Sorry whittled her away

until she was a hollow girl

with an out-of-date coin

on her tongue.

Note To Self

Not hate, more like wanting to sting you awake,

fling a basket of midges like the mistakes

you try to forget. I'm sending you pinches at dawn

and a bruise in the chest to remind you

each time you draw breath. All you need do

is behave like a well-ordered woman

in Regency dress dancing a Pavanne. ...

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