#weekendcoffeeshare: Flutter Back

If we were having coffee, I wouldn’t be able to resist telling you how excited I am to have my poem, “Flutter Back” analysed in Alison Chisholm‘s Poetry Workshop in July’s edition of Writing Magazine.

Until I attended Swanwick: The Writers’ Summer School for the first time in 2016, I had never considered my poetry to be worth sharing. I attended Joy France‘s specialist course on poetry. I’d always considered myself to be a rubbish poet because that is what my English teacher told me when I was eight years old. I had never shared any of my poetry until Joy persuaded me to read one of my poems during her afternoon session.

At the Summer School in 2018, I had a 1:1 with Alison Chisholm and I performed a couple of my poems at the open mic night.

I am absolutely thrilled that “Flutter Back” is featured and analysed in Alison’s Poetry Workshop in the July edition of Writing Magazine.

You can hardly imagine how much confidence this exposure gives to me. And there is the added bonus of some excellent advice from one of Britain’s top poets.

As you’ll read, if you get your hands on a copy of the magazine, the idea for this poem was seeded by a flash fiction exercise that we worked on at Andover Writers’ Circle.

Here is my poem.

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Flutter Back

Photo credit: Geoff Parkes

Fluttering from flower to flower,
loving my life of fragrant scents.
I’m a gorgeous, multi-coloured courier of pollen,
dancing gaily past those dowdy moths
as I paint precious powder on every stamen.

Every day I feel younger and sprightlier,
relishing each taste of sweet nectar
as I approach my youth,
showing off my beauty as I wave my wings,
twenty-eight sunsets before I stretch and yawn.

I fold up my wings and slide
into my sleeping bag, recently found
suspended by silk thread
from a gorgeous green leaf.
I pupate. I sleep. Deep sleep.

I unpupate and become fat and sluggish,
emerging slowly, crawling lazily onto the leaf.
My beautiful wings have disappeared, to be replaced
by a hundred legs. My belly is full.
I am drowsy, lethargic, weary; dreary.

Tired and hungry, I set off on my journey.
My many friends look exactly like me:
supple, exuding charm and constantly chomping
on our compelling mission to reconstruct leaves
on our little tree: our dinner.

Our labours rewarded: rejuvenated and slimmer,
we’re shrinking and massing as the world becomes dimmer,
huddling together, curling up, becoming sticky balls,
cuddling our neighbours under green leaf.
At last, and in the beginning, we are eggs.

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If you liked this poem, you may be also like to read some more of my poetry on my Titbits page.

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