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. Here is a selection.


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

Eggcups at Besalu

Photograph by Mike Smith

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 I loved Mike Smith's pottery pictures, especially the close-up of eggcups. The structure of this poem follows a famous poem called Adlestrop by Edward Thomas.

Spinnaker Dance

  

In the blink of the photographer's eye
Clack of shutter catches the moment
When crazy rainbows whirl round the sky.
One, two, three spinnakers ripped loose
- ropes holding hands in the wind -
Flirt with freedom, dance round mainsails.
An instant later they will be flotsam, debris.
Just another spill as someone's sail
Slaps the sea.

Pat Murgatroyd

Spinnaker Dance

Photograph by Bob Newcombe



Country Cottage

Photograph by Ivan Gregg

Under its heavy brows of thatch
The house sits, sulky and squat,
Hunched against the winter storms,
Hiding from the summer heat.

Sheltered by a busy hawthorne hedge,
Smudgy white, broad bean flowers
Rub shoulders with crimson peonies.
Beetroot grows beside sweet scented pinks.

The rising sun shines at the back door.
And winds blow in from the Steppes.
A black range scowls at the floor
While the dinner struggles to cook.

Aunt Jinny skins and cleans
Snared rabbits, to make a pie
And I cannot ride home on my bike,
After drinking her sweet damson wine.

Evening light rests in the parlour
Crammed with stiff horsehair sofa,
Hard wooden chairs, a round table,
A few china ornaments and tears.

Marion Carmichael


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

Grainy wood

Photograph by Mike Smith

Abandoned Sole
Abandoned Sole

Photograph
by Mike Smith

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