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New Pamphlets in May & June 2022
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17 Paper Resurrections, by John Gallas, the winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize.

What Rita Tells Me by Janet Hatherley

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Recent VOLE  COLLECTIONS
​and D&W PAMPHLETS

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In memoriam:
​Linda Rose Parkes
We are very sad to announce the death of Linda Rose Parkes, the author of This Close and Diving for Pearls, after a short illness. Linda was a remarkable person, a talented poet and painter, who is sorely missed by her family, her many friends, and by us, her most recent publishers. Her final book, 'Diving for Pearls' was published in April 2022 and is available from her page.

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Two poems from this month's featured book: 
JUST ASKING by Bert Flitcroft

 “I enjoyed JUST ASKING for its poetry of conviction, of place, of injustice which is all served up with compassion, and the bite of wit. A hugely enjoyable experience which I’d recommend to all who seek a complex appreciation of our beloved isle.”
— Daljit Nagra

To my friends: just asking…
 
Some days I have nothing new to say
of consequence. No opinion about the rain,
no forthright view about the latest scandal
or the smell of crusty bread.
But should something startling happen:
an angel threaten to descend
or a best friend lost, or an old love found,
these are surely pearls worth diving for.
 
We have swum in the same sea for years,
so why, when the water feels deep
do you lapse into awkward silence,
close up your hearts and seal them
as tight as oyster shells?
Why the need to keep a cancer secret,
or treat a shortage of sex as a shame
as if it were a sweet grape
withered to an unspeakable raisin?
Or admit to the heat of unrequited love
that has scorched the heart of all of us?
As if these things were a moral failing
or a sign of weakness.
My life is full of conversations I do not have.
This is a matter of soul.
Some days I might as well be up a mountain
shouting into the ice-blue emptiness,
​or in the supermarket buying beer and oranges.

© Bert Flitcroft
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        I love my garden. I could sit in it all day
 
            admiring those pink flowers on the what-do-you-call-it
            and the purple stuff in the pots on the patio.
 
            In spring I like the yellow flowers that look like
            sad trumpets drooping on tall green pencils
 
            and those purple grape thing-a-my-jigs
            sprouting out between the rockery weeds.
 
            I adore the summer soapy smell of a red rose
            and I’m quite partial to the uji-my-flip by the big tree,
 
            as well as that round bushy thing like a bad haircut
            destroying the neat straight lines of the lawn
 
            The pretty white blossom stuff on that old tree is nice,
            by the bottom fence where the field sweeps up.
 
            I love the constant flutter of those little brown birds,
            the kind of tits that flit in and out of the thick hedge,
 
            and the chatter of crows, and the joyful song of the two
            black birds whose territory cuts my mossy lawn in half.
 
            I can tell my carnivores from my herbivores, too.
            I’m happy to watch the joy of the tug for a juicy worm,
 
            although I can’t quite make up my mind about that
            copper shrub thing in the corner which attracts the wasps,
 
            as well as the what’s-its-name beside the shed
            where those fat birds sit silhouetted like vultures.

© Bert Flitcroft