September
This is unknown;
my bright, berry blood comes late,
follows a new calendar.
Soon, I’ll say goodbye
to this belching red,
this faint anaemia, goodbye
to the children
I never wanted. Last night,
walking back from the village,
I saw them in the waning moon,
holding hands, running
away from me.
(Commended in the Poetry Society’s 2011 Stanza Competition)
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Katrina Naomi’s first full collection The Girl with the Cactus Handshake was shortlisted for the 2010 London New Poetry Award and received an Arts Council England writer’s award. Her pamphlet Lunch at the Elephant & Castle won the 2008 Templar Poetry Competition. In 2009-10, Katrina was the first writer-in-residence at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, W Yorks. A collection of her Bronte-themed poems Charlotte Bronte’s Corset was published in 2010 by the Bronte Society. Katrina is working towards a new collection while studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths. She is originally from Margate and lives in south London. Visit Katrina’s site.
Abegail Morley 