Kerry Darbishire, songwriter and poet, grew up in the Lake District where she continues to live, find inspiration and write in a wild area of Cumbria. Her poems have appeared widely in anthologies and magazines and have won or been listed in several competitions, including the Bridport shortlist 2017, and the 2018 PBS Mslexia Poetry Competition. Her first poetry collection, A Lift of Wings, was published in 2014 by Indigo Dreams. A biography, Kay’s Ark, the story of her mother, was published in 2016 by Handstand Press. www.handstandpress.net.
Her second poetry collection, Sweet on my Tongue, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2018 and is a finalist in the Cumbria Culture Awards 2019. Kerry co-edited the new Handstand Press Cumbrian Poetry Anthology, This Place I know, and is currently working on a pamphlet and a new full collection.
Letters from Home
It’s not your news
the willow-curve of your words
I wait for but the space
between the lines
clear taste
of the ghyll
her mouth-grey dawns squall
of blackbirds thrush and wren echoing
the leaf-scorched beck
her rain-on-rain September song
thrum of hooves
to shearing dipping cries of separation
banks of primrose violets lizards
storing summer warmth
the pause
between dappled shade and tiny
dusty throats swallowing the moon
in love with her own gaze her promise
to return on dead fern days
that northern light
falling between the lines
like winter from the sky
Kerry Darbishire
Cloudburst by Kerry Darbishire
