Sue Davies grew up in London. She practised as a nurse at Westminster Hospital before going on to work for BBC radio. She married and lived in Oxford and then moved to Cyprus with her husband to teach English. On her return she studied English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Sussex and Southampton University. She lectured in English and now mentors writers and poets.
Her first poetry collection Blue Water Café was followed by Split the Lark, published by Oversteps Books. Her third collection Broken Love is being prepared for publication. She is a prize-winning poet and lives in Hampshire.
Her poems have appeared in The Observer, Poetry Wales, The Interpreter’s House, Acumen, Orbis, Magma and many other poetry magazines. In 2022 her memoir Susanna: the making of an English girl was published under her unmarried name S.M Saunders. Her poem The Reader was awarded first prize in the Edward Thomas Fellowship Poets competition.
More recently Winter Curfew Breakers was shortlisted by Wells poetry and other poems have been highly commended by Canon’s mouth, including Whimsy and Solace of Bearings, and In the end. Other commended and prize-winning poems appear in her collection Split the Lark.
To Poison was awarded 3rd prize by the Welsh Poetry Competition in 2024.
She has also contributed to anthologies published by Grey Hen Press celebrating women’s contribution to the world, and selected poems are being translated into Romanian from English in preparation for a Romanian publication.
She takes an active part in the Winchester Poetry Festival where she has been invited to read her work, including further readings at the English Heritage readings in Winchester. She is a member of Winchester Muse which meets to read and celebrate guest poets such as Helen Ivory, Jo Bell, Martin Figura, and many other wonderful poets.
Stolen Land
Please take this key and keep it safe. It’ll open
our kitchen door by the pomegranate tree.
Under the window a bench scrubbed white
is where Grandpa confided in his dog, pulled
off his boots, worried his beads, enjoyed a smoke
and let his mind go down with the sun.
If you take the mountain road east, the sun
will glide your shadow ahead on the open
road and from a ditch by the cornfield, smoke
may rise from a fire made from a fallen tree
warming orphaned lambs and goats pulled
from the ravine, the shepherd’s hair white
as Easter wreaths turned brittle and white
by strokes of the fearsome summer’s sun.
As a child I was sent into the fields to pull
up wild rosemary for the stew pot on the open
fire while Dad waxed the raw pine tree’s
wood to glow gold, as olive leaves smoked,
perfuming the linen chests he made, smoke
lingering in his workshop as he carved white
Lilies of the Field, wild cyclamen and fig trees
to the delight of brides. Finches flocked in sun-
lit trees for their springtime symposium, open
to bee-eaters, and copper butterflies as if drawn
from dreams, from the blood-shot sky, drawn
away from shell cases, mess of war, battle-smoke
in the hills. But once on the veranda my eyes opened,
then closed on love as I kissed a boy among white
gardenias, their leaves wilting in the dying sun,
while Mum’s hens burbled in our myrtle trees.
Please make a note of the places where lemon trees
might grow again, despite burnt roots roiled
by tanks destroying everything under the sun.
These are men who set caves on fire to smoke
out women and children, cowering in fine white
ash blown from the firing line. So please open
your heart, take this key, return to tell battle smoke
no longer eclipses the sun, and you in your white
helmet approached in peace, our door opening….
Sue Davies
Sue says:
‘I knew the maker of dowry chests and ordered one to be made in his house in the tiny village of Lapithos, North Cyprus. Sadly when we met again his family had fled from the Turkish invaders. The invasion was horrific and brutal. It was common to keep a key to one’s house hoping one day to return…it was such a beautiful place…’
Photo Credits: All images obtained via pixabay. Credits go to:
pomegranate: ulleo; key: Pezibear; house: dimitrisvetsikas1969; chest: Bru-nO; boy river: Gaspartacus; kiss: Tumisu; red sky: javelin; tank: rozbooy; open door: ultimatebipin; sunset: rperucho.