I am delighted to welcome Anne B Murray, one of our two poetry editors for the FWS anthology, an inspiring tutor to many community groups and a seasoned and entertaining performer and poet not afraid to tackle important issues.
You can read about her and read her vivid, haunting poem Viriditas below
Anne writes of herself:
After graduating in English from Stirling University in the 1970s, my first job was full-time tutor in HMP Barlinnie, in my native Glasgow. A wonderful job, but with limitations (literal and figurative).
After five years there, I went on to work as literacies tutor/creative writing facilitator with various community groups in and around Glasgow. I spent a couple of years in Spain as TEFL tutor; returned home; trained and worked in health care/promotion/research before returning to creative writing facilitation.
Since my teenage years, I have been writing – personal journals and poetry on many different subjects. At forty, I summoned up the courage to send my poems out. In the past 20 years since then I have had modest success with poems in New Writing Scotland, Cutting Teeth, Poetry Now, Gutter, The Herald, NVP’s ‘Shorelines’ and in various anthologies including Luath Press’s recent Scotia Nova. I have self-published four poetry pamphlets. ‘Viriditas’, below, is published this month in Grey Hen Press’s Shades of Meaning anthology.
I love to encourage new writers to keep writing, share their work, learn from fellow writers. That’s why I support the work of the Federation and encourage participants in my groups to join. I like FWS’s inclusive nature in providing information, workshop, networking and publishing opportunities for writers from all backgrounds and of all abilities. I feel privileged to be invited to be joint poetry editor for this year’s anthology, and many thanks to the committee for their confidence in me.
Viriditas
The greenness of knowledge
Sometimes in the curve of a building
or the shadow of a monument
a door opens and enters me.
Time then is neither spent nor saved
does not stand still nor tick past
is not memory nor present nor longing.
There on the asphalt pavement
I soften, decentre and feel
the greenness rush through me
momentarily and forever
I am the river, pure, flowing,
the velvet of mallard’s head
the wind through trees
first shoots, bright blossom,
ripening fruit, dark yew.
Standing at my parents’ grave
where I too will be interred
I feel nothing; try to feel
but there is no
sense of their presence.
Neither were they there
in that rushing greenness
yet neither were they absent.
Moss on the stone slab
is silent to my touch;
the only sound the rustle
of plastic tangled in branches
like oddly discoloured leaves
or patches of clothing
caught on barbed wire.
© Anne B Murray 2015
