Southampton is a city of culture, regardless of any formal titles, that is incontestable.
As host of Write a Note, I have the privilege of welcoming poets and writers to share their work on a monthly basis, but I also attend and take part in other events, therefore the array of different talent is constantly being displayed to me.
In the recent months, it was a pleasure to receive two new poets at Write a Note, and they kindly agreed to share their work more widely with you here.
David Wright
Following a 25 year career in IT, David Wright joined his wife for the next 20 years running a family business providing childcare to over 1,000 children each week across Southampton. Recently retired but still very busy, he is a grandfather for whom the welfare of children and the human condition are a priority, having experienced the death of two of his children when they were very young.
David has always been fascinated by the richness of language and its sounds. He can recall writing and performing poetry as a means of expression for at least the last five decades. Partly this is cathartic, but he also hopes that in sharing experience and imagination, he is able to connect with readers and listeners through a common humanity. His themes encompass joy and the wonder of life as well as poignancy, grief and new angles on the mundane.
He believes that poetry as an artform has a duty to affect its audience. Its success should be measured by the extent to which it is memorable because it moves us, makes us smile, provides comfort, unites us, offends, challenges or empowers us.
Ten things I know about the colour blue
It smuggles itself past security
clinging to the inside of a briefcase
It spreads from pipette to beaker,
crystal by crystal, in regulated steps
It listens to James Taylor and reaches through candlelight
over the lip of the bath
It is never an exact match
for the scratch in the bonnet
It is the non-toxic scribblings of sea and sky
on Year One’s display
It has been trade marked
by IBM and Chelsea FC
It is over-used like a bruise on the back,
where it won’t show
It was your favourite of all Samuel’s Babygros
uselessly clean and folded at the back of the airing cupboard
Hidden behind clouds, it sometimes turns black
Cheese tends to mother it.
You Were
You were in the windscreen all the way to Crawley.
You were at the bottom of my pint of IPA.
You were at the back of the very boring meeting
laughing in your unaffected way,
you were.
You were in the Volvo that cut me up at Chichester.
You wrestled a pushchair through the door of M and S,
admittedly you’d changed your hair
but instantly I recognised your dress.
You were reading out the news on the local radio.
You said unemployment rose, I recognised your tone
and you were in the road gang digging up the bypass.
You were up the far end laying out the cones,
you were.
You were in the tarmac. You were in the rain.
You were in the rainbow that came.
You were by the gateposts standing in the drive.
You twitched the curtains at number forty five.
You were in the hallway waiting by the door.
You were who I was coming home for.
You were soft. You were gentle, You were hot.
You were who I I’d been thinking about a lot,
you were.
Scarlett M
Growing up in a musical household, Scarlett began composing their own songs and lyrics from a young age. In 2021, Scarlett began producing and releasing their own music from home part time whilst parenting.
When Scarlett’s personal life turned upside down in late 2022, songwriting disappeared. It was replaced by poem after poem expressing not just the darkness that they had lived through, but also the new joys of dating and finding love and friendship again.
Scarlett is sharing a new poem every week via Substack, as well as written blogs. You can find out more here scarlettstacks.substack.com
Scarlett is looking forward to releasing music of a different kind in the future, one that combines their original poetry and spoken word, as well as songwriting and production skills.
Number
Memories ricochet
And rebound
I clasp your scent
But I’ve lost your sound.
Silence in the DMs
You’re nowhere to be found.
You were aiming for friendship
But heartbreak caverns echo
Empty and Loud.
Disappointed to the bone
Another waste of time
Number added to my phone.
Heartbroken and dismayed.
You always knew it
would be less painful
if you stayed.
Dating
I go down to the market
A glass jar in my pocket.
It’s not the most beautiful
But I know if I stand there
At the side of the market square
One day someone will see
My ordinary glass jar as beauty.
I gave it all
To my first offer – sold and gone.
He broke it. And shattered it.
Laughed at the scattered pieces.
Shit on it and spat on it.
And as I crumpled in the corner
I curled my fists Around the fractured pieces and bled.
I swept them back together
And back at the market square stood.
The remains aloft.
Hello there
Could you love my broken?
Can I even sell it as beauty now the way my glass jar used
To be?
He looked at it
Examined the shards
And ghosted.
Good evening sir
Can you admire a fracture?
He searched the pile
Stole a fragment
And left blood stains on the carpet.
I stood arms outstretched and I wept
With the fragments that I had left.
He caressed the pieces
And puzzled as he placed them back together
But nothing was sticking.
He wanted forever
But I told him broken forever is not what I’m after.
He left.
I felt healed.
I puzzled over my own pieces back together
No longer selling in the market square
just Sat down in my corner.
He found me
And taught me kintsugi.
“You think you’re broken
But broken is beauty..”
He said.
“You think you’re missing pieces
But all you’re missing is Me. ”
I saw His Hands.
“I can take your fragmented pieces
and make a new piece of pottery. “
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