Sognefjord by Maggie Butt

 


Maggie Butt is an ex-journalist and BBC television producer turned poet and novelist.

Her poetry collection Degrees of Twilight (2015) follows Sancti Clandestini – Undercover Saints, an illustrated hagiography of imaginary saints, and  Ally Pally Prison Camp, which tells a little-known first world war story. Earlier collections were petite and Lipstick. Her novel House of Dreams was published as Maggie Brookes.

Maggie is an Associate Professor at Middlesex University and an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund. She has judged the Frogmore, Ver Poets and Barnet poetry competitions, and this year is judging the Ware and Segora.

www.maggiebutt.co.uk

 

 

 

             

             

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

Sognefjord

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mist

            drapes over the shoulders of the mountains

            like a mohair shawl; droops to the rippling

            pewter-and-mercury shadow-chasing surface

            of the fjord; rises up the vaults and chimneys of craggy

            walls of rock; cocoons the timbered cottage

            cuddled into the breast of the hillside;

           

mist

            softens the reflections of white weatherboard

            houses, red boat-sheds  and silvertrunked birch trees

            on the water, veiling their loveliness;

           

mist

            skates on the gunmetal-sheen of the wet road;

            swims in the shallow rivers which buck-and-thrash

            in their craving to join the sea; brushes the black conifers

            sillhouetted along the ridge, competing to pierce

            the skin of the sky, disappears them into herself.

 

 

  

 

Maggie Butt

 

Degrees of Twilight by Maggie Butt

Norwegian Wood by Maggie Butt

Oak by Maggie Butt

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Poems