Eye is delighted to introduce readers to the work of poet and writer Sibyl Ruth, a member of Central England Area Meeting, who has just scooped first prize of 1,000 pounds in the 2008 Poetry Competition organised by Mslexia, the magazine for women writers.
Sibyl's entry 'A Song of Jean' was judged by the novelist Carol Ann Duffy to be 'a skilful, beautifully-paced poem... by a writer fully at ease with her own considerable abilities'.
The winning poem, which we are reprinting by kind permission of Mslexia, will immediately resonate with Friends. It is a lyrical portrait of an older member of a Meeting, eccentric but lovable and worthy of praise and blessing.
Sibyl has been writing for twenty years and recently gave up her day job, working for an arts organisation, to concentrate on writing. 'It's lovely to have some confirmation that this decision was the right one', she says. She admitted to Eye that she finds it difficult ('and risky!') to connect being a Quaker with being a poet. 'But so far I have felt encouraged by the way Friends have responded to this piece.'
Sibyl has had collections
of her poetry published by the Iron Press and Five Leaves publishers.

A song of Jean

Let my tongue and keyboard both proclaim the power of Jean.

For in the meeting house, Jean gets to her feet often and ministers
with a voice that is a clanging gong.
She drives away false peace, awakens us.
Teach us not to fear becoming caught in the long diversions of Jean's
thoughts, lost in the ring road of her speech.

When the appointed hour is done, may we engage Jean in conversation
and not run away from her in the lobby for some invented reason.

Let us acknowledge the aging of Jean
who doesn't enjoy being eighty
but wishes to go on as she did at thirty.
Allow us all to accommodate Jean's fury,
listening with tenderness to her shouts and rants
Jean's demands for help. Her refusal of help that's offered.
Those cries of No. No I can do it. I can manage.

May we make time to watch over Jean
for she mislays her spectacles, her watch, her keys, her purse.

Help us to worship the Spirit that shaped the hands of Jean,
hands that once tied knots, hammered tent pegs, peeled thousands of
potatoes.
Jean's hands now in their fleecy gloves, their knobbly, twisted, arthritic
fingers,
hands that can no longer do buttons, whose buttons are done wrong.
frantic hands that keep on searching bags and rattling papers.

Jean has been diminished, yet we shall magnify Jean's name.
Lead us to esteem properly the engine that is Jean's body
the darkness of her teeth.
the hairs of her head, white and coarse as dune grass
her stertorous breath
her bent back
her slumped chest.
Also let us praise Jean's black-handled stick that likes to slip from her grasp and hit the floor with a great clatter.

May we remember always the muchness of Jean's mind
Her mind that carries those seas from which we crawled in the beginning
that holds those caverns which shall open to receive us at our end.

May glory and honour belong to Jean, and every day that remains to her be blessed.

Labels: poetry

Edrey Allott of Bath Local Meeting was baffled to read the word 'biogas' in the Friend (25 April). Is the singular 'bioga'? (Sounds like something from Harry Potter to us.) Edrey produced this little tongue-in-cheek ditty:

Just what is a bioga?
And what is its shape and size?
Is it a large wild animal
With black and staring eyes?
Is it a robe-like toga
Or a lengthy period of time?
Is it a coin of small value
Like a farthing or dime?
I read in the Friend it is needed
In China, a vital resource,
But what is this strange new substance?
Oh - it's bio-gas of course!

Labels: green, poetry

There's been a lot about dying in the magazine recently. It appears to be getting to our Norfolk Friend Bob Ward in his sleep. He awoke one morning aware that he had been writing a poem about dying in his dreams. He completed it there and then and sent it to us.

Dying...
...may take place anywhere
but let it be among
people to whom
I can express my love

...may take place anytime
but let it be when
the sun has risen
upon a day to leave to others

...will take place anyhow
but let it be at peace
bearing no grudge
against the world

...must come, will come
but let it be, oh Lord,
in the fullness of an active mind
and not just yet

Labels: death, poetry

Our highlighting of the haiku poetic form in the Friend (15 February) struck a chord with Ian McPherson. Ian lives in a part of the country perfect for a haiku lover - Cumbria - and Brigflatts is his meeting. 'I have long regarded haiku as quintessentially "Quaker" poetry', he says, 'embodying, as it does, simplicity, economy, integrity, a nature theme, deep insight into the human condition and, perhaps above all, the spontaneity by which, like ministry, it arises from the silence'.
Ian offers some writers to help a novice haiku poet - Sam Hamill (The Sound of Water), Kenneth Yasuda (Japanese Haiku) and William J Higginson (The Haiku Handbook - How to Write, Share and Teach Haiku).
Ian has a novel idea for us. 'I would like to propose a regular "Haiku (HaiQ?) Corner" in the Friend which would contain one or two original haiku submitted by readers. Not only would this provide haikuists with the opportunity to appear in print but might also serve to inspire others to try their hand. It is a wonderfully simple yet profound way of being creative with words and of sharing one's insight with others.' And he has started the ball rolling with one of his own –

Jackdaws protest -
The lone jogger disturbs their roost
As evening comes on.

This is in keeping with our search for a leaner, more disciplined poetry. Eye invites readers to try their hand at the very short poem and we will print the best ones.

Labels: haiku, poetry

The news is often a target for Quaker wrath. Jack Lacey from Rochester PM sent us these verses after a debate with a Friend on the state of the world.

Before Breakfast and After the News
The Daily Expert, the Daily Scare,
Do I let loose my diatribe - I hardly dare!
As I view the Daily Scandal laid bare
The world! Before I've washed or combed my hair!

The interview for the selling of a book
The newsreaders with their pretending look
The Minister not brought to truth or book
Driving his or her point by hook or crook.

Who is to deny the corporate lies - I despair?
As my pen turns acidly to Bush and Blair
That plausible, charming and murderous pair
And they not the worst the world doth share!

That leaves but the 'Thought for the Day'!
And who shall say that item should not stay?
That as she or he of pain and hope doth say
It comes - perhaps - that I too should pray?

We recommend a full English breakfast before listening to the news.

Labels: breakfast, lacey, poetry, quakers, rochester