Triangles, my new poetry collection, is now available to purchase directly from Penteract Press, who ship all over the world.
You can order a copy at this link: https://penteractpress.com/store/triangles
Author Archives: Marian Christie
The Poetry and Mathematics of Crochet
There may be poets who can sit in front of their computer or notebook and spontaneously compose a poem, but I am not one of them. Generally, my poems have a long gestation. I tend to mull them over while doing other things: gardening, walking, cleaning the bathrooms. Crocheting.
Continue readingWhich comes first – the chicken or the egg?
How does the formulation of a poem begin? With an idea, an image, a phrase, a subject, a feeling, a memory, a structure?
I’ve been thinking about this question in relation to my own writing. Unsurprisingly, there is no single answer. On rare occasions a poem plops almost fully formed into my head (inconveniently, this tends to happen in the middle of the night). The trick then is to capture it, to write it down before it flits off and disappears like a migrating bird.
Continue readingFebruary’s Garden
The days are lengthening. Harbingers of spring pierce through resistant soil; spikes of daffodils and early tulips mingle, tight buds sprinkle thin syringa stems. A few oak leaves linger, crisp-curled and dead, rasping in the flowerbed – but death is a stranger now. Pale hellebore blushes shyly, fern fronds prepare to unfurl. Clouds lift. The air is clear and bright. All winter I have dug hard cold ground, hoed, mulched, dreamed of growth. Now, accompanied by bird song, I plant words.
This poem was first published on The Wombwell Rainbow in February 2023. It is a variation of a masnavi (or mathnawi), a poetic form that has its origins in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu writing.
Cascade
Listen to the riversong – meltwater from mountain flanks tumbling its own path between resistant rocks. Meltwater from mountain flanks trickles down through peat and moss, conjoins to become a burn tumbling its own path; tugs at roots by shaded banks, crashes, eddies, foams. Between resistant rocks salmon leap against the flow, glinting in the sun.
This poem was first published on The Wombwell Rainbow in January 2023. It is a trimeric, a recent poetic form devised by Dr Charles A. Stone.
New Year – a Scrabblegram
Zimbabwe – a Scrabblegram
Review: Cartouche! by Dylan King & Michelle Moloney King
Observing a young child at play is a wondrous experience. A rug becomes the sea; measuring spoons are flowers and mushrooms; a cardboard box is a garage, a castle, a football goal. Imagination isn’t restricted by an object’s nominal function. Everything is infused with sparkling energy and an unquestioning sense of fun.
Cartouche!, a collaboration between Dylan King and his mother Michelle Moloney King, captures the joyful essence of play. Dylan King’s contribution is in the form of visual poetry: confident, vigorous drawings and adventurous explorations of the interaction between a keyboard and the appearance of characters on a screen. Michelle Moloney King responds with ekphrastic poems that are vibrant and surreal.
Continue readingReview: Contrapasso by Alexandra Fössinger
In Dante’s Inferno, the poet is guided by Virgil on a journey through the nine circles of Hell, witnessing the punishment of souls in ways that are appropriate to the sins they committed in life – a process described as contrapasso,’to suffer the opposite’. Souls are trapped for eternity in a state of retribution specific to their own wrongdoing.
Continue reading100 letter tiles – the joy of Scrabblegrams
Some months ago, I received a charming email from a stranger who had read and enjoyed some of my poems. The stranger’s name was David Cohen and we started following each other on Twitter, where I very quickly discovered that he posts a daily Scrabblegram.
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