Event

Southend Poetry Group 5th October

Bio
Born in London, Sue Rose now lives in Kent where she works as a
literary translator. She won the Troubadour Poetry Prize in 2009 and
the Canterbury Poet of the Year competition in 2008. Her debut
collection, From the Dark Room, is published by Cinnamon (2011).

“Sue Rose knows poetry, without doubt… She has the ability to look at
life, and death, with unsparing clarity, and at the same time with an
empathy that never spills over into sentimentality. I’ve seldom
experienced such a wonderful first collection.” Robert vas Dias

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Poem

Draining the Reservoir

Things are all surface for a time,
trees and clouds impervious to their twin,
until the skin is wrinkled by a shiver
and the slow exhumation begins;
the church spire lifts through first,
its caged bell smacking the water down,
then roofs surface like u-boats, chimneys
sighting sunshine, and runnels bound
from attics, bedrooms, pelt downstairs
like excited children through front doors
with no doors, bursting into open air
to make for the river as it pours
through town, followed by tram lines
where careless bike wheels catch and stall;
it’s right to the Granada and the high street shops,
left to the madhouse and the hospital.
Now the broken homes are bringing the lanes
swaggering back, whistling through gapped teeth
and ferreting in pockets for smooth holed stones,
furry sherbet lemons, a threepenny piece.