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BEYOND WINGS
Alison Lock’s poetry and short stories have appeared in anthologies and journals in the UK and internationally. Her work has won prizes in The London Magazine, Sentinel Literary Quarterly Review, and a semi-finalist in the Carve Esoteric Prize. It has been published in reviews, journals and anthologies including: Firewords, The Copperfield Review, Deep Water Literary Journal, Tears in the Fence, Myriad Editions Quick Fictions, Momaya Annual Review, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, The Lake, Haibun Today, Pennine Platform, Off the Coast, Southlight, Sarasvati, amongst others.
She was Poet-in-residence at Holmfirth Arts Festival 2012 and her poem 'eye of the heron' was performed at the launch of the 2013 Festival. Her first collection of poetry, A Slither of Air (2011), was published as a result of winning the Indigo Dreams Poetry Collection Competition. Since then she has published a collection of short stories, Above the Parapet, (IDP 2013) and read at the 13th International Conference on the Short Story in English, Vienna.
She has an MA in Literature Studies and she facilitates Transformative Life Writing courses. She is currently working on a fantasy novella to be published later in 2015. Beyond Wings is her second poetry collection; its poems connect an inner world with an exploration of the land and a love of nature, through poetry, prose, and haibun.
Alison Lock
Beyond Wings
ISBN 978-1-909357-83-9
Indigo Dreams Publishing
Poetry
138 x 216mm
62 pages
£7.99 + P&P UK
PUB: April 2015
ORDER HERE
Fish Bone
There's a fish bone,
a Paleozoic skeleton,
a spectre, an apparition
on a sonic scan.
Twelve weeks in vitro
and there you are,
in perfect
working order.
We stare at the bird,
the fish, made
in our dreams
on a nest of pillows.
Now, here on a screen
framed by width
of numbers, figures,
percentiles, you are
here, but not here,
temporarily submerged
in a liquid world
waiting to exchange
the sonic booms
for airborne
cries of neither
fish nor bird.
Woodburner
the fish lie low
under discs
of ice slit whips
echoing through woods
rumbled hooves
halos of frost
dragged moss
logs embossed
flame for the hearth
flame for the hearth
logs embossed
dragged moss
halos of frost
rumbled hooves
echoing through woods
of ice slit whips
under discs
the fish lie low
Her Watch
Old-fashioned, delicate,
still ticking after 80 years
a gift from her husband
for some occasion, I do not know.
Perhaps to celebrate
the birth of their first born,
or when he arrived home
after the war – a different man.
Now they are gone
his gift to her is left to me
––too precious
loaded on my wrist.
I can hardly bear the weight.
Kiss
We are in limelight
treading a pebbled stage
our esses are stolen
by the waves
as silver tongues
lap the shore
our eyes switch
in the strip-light
our lips are
the full moon.
Guiding Lights
In this dream I follow
the marks made by the sea-stars.
I watch their
flaccid tendrils crossing
the tide-line where the curling
waves shoal.
I sail on a boat of glass.
Below, I see
the clutter of
a city on the ocean floor.
Aerials are breaking
the surface
beacons of light are blinking
from the skylights
their bright orbits
guiding me over the sea.
Oystercatchers
Our oars cut the lean
as piper pigeons coo.
On the island two trees clasp
the earth with veined roots.
Our feet dangle, drawing
heart-shapes on the tarn––
not knowing our symbols will be
read as hostile flags
until we see the semaphore of wings––
a nesting pair have taken flight,
airborne stripes of black, white,
a shock red warning
swooping in—all but striking
–scuttling––we swing a wider course.
The Eucalyptus of Canterbury
Cradled, my feet
tune in, roots vibrate
as my rocking heels
shelve the loam,
angered ants weave
beaded manacles
around my ankles.
Silver-furred trees
crest holy spires
littering the ground
with splintered
sheaths of cinnamon
castings, heavy
with the scent
of a too-long summer.
Rain arrives, I hug
the tree, hearing the drone
of a didgeridoo.
These are poems that connect an inner world with an exploration of the land and a
love of nature, through poetry, prose, and haibun.
“Alison Lock's is a highly individual voice. A traveller, an impressionist artist-inwords, her 'room' (or rooms – as she describes them, all of them 'rented') is the landscape, the seascape, the sky-scape of nature, in all its brilliant secret detail.
She's clearly a lover of words, and she's good at finding the right words. She's a minimalist; and (rare poetic virtue) she knows when to stop.
This is a collection to be read at a sitting; the whole is infinitely more compelling than its parts. It's not so much a body of verses as a travelogue of lyrical aperçus; it offers a consistent vision of an everyday natural world that is freshly invested with particularity and significance. Lock has a practised alertness to what is there. It is this focus, this closeness of attention and precision of description that gives her
verse its authority.”
R V Bailey
“Alison Lock is a writer who is not afraid to experiment with language and form.
This latest publication demonstrates her sensitivity to the natural world and her ability to conjure it, taking us on a journey through a personal vision of
landscape and fulfilment.”
Jo Haslam
