Focus | Shore Women

Poems and Pictures of Past Events

Collaboration with Ryde Imaging Group

Exhibitions with Ryde Imaging Group

Shore Women and Focus - Ryde Imaging group have produced joint exhibitions of photographs and poetry, shown at the Full Circle Gallery, St. Mary's Hospital and at the Apollo Theatre, Newport. The poems and photographs have also been shown around the Island at other venues where Shore Women perform.

The Eyes Have It

His eyes are cameras
noting, listing, absorbing, classifying
all that he sees,
bombarding his brain.
Hers are the eyes of a poet
looking beyond what things seem,
creating a dream.

Joan Waddleton

The Eyes Have It

Photograph by Bob Newcombe

Eggcups at Besalu

Photograph by Mike Smith

Eggcups at Besalu

Yes, I remember Besalu—
the tiny shop, where one afternoon
I pulled up there in my hire car
in the heat. It was late June.

Outside the shop, under a tree
ceramic bowls were gaily tumbled
swirls of blue, white, red and yellow
cheerful, rounded bodies jumbled.

And eggcups, on their ends, pink, gold
And some of them turned to the light
wore faces, each with expressions—
bemused, confident, fearful, bright.

And for that minute in the sun
I thought I saw my joy and pain
reflected in all the potteries
of Portugal and Spain.

Shelley McAlister

Wholesale Fruit Market

Diagonal display, graded,
Colour co-ordinated, provenance clearly shown.
Each one matching stated consumer preference,
Nothing random grown.

While supermarkets shout
Their rival bids
I sigh for unnamed apples
We scrumped as kids.

Joan Waddleton

Wholesale Fruit Market

Photograph by Mike Smith

Grainy

Photograph by Mike Smith

Grainy

Hacked, split and torn.
Your ringed history
A common sideshow.
Your secret places exposed,
Degraded into ornament.
Heartwood cracks.
Sap falls like tears.

Marion Carmichael

Abandoned Sole

A little sandal on the sand,
Thrown or flown off in the rush,
Lying sideways from a kick or a trip.
Shingle sharp surrounds it.
How could it have been abandoned?
How could the foot not have missed it?
And what will the mummy say?

Where's your other sandal?
How can you have only one?
What do you mean dropped it?
Left it lying more likely.
We can't afford another pair
And they don't sell singles.

Some little soul who abandoned
This other little sole on the sand,
May be sorry later.

Kate MacDonell

Abandoned Sole

Photograph by Mike Smith

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