Welcome to the third episode of Dickens and Quips!This week we have Christina Thatcher on the show and I shall be reading from Audre LordeFind Christina at @jwritetoempower on Twitter and InstaI'm almost certain that Audre Lorde doesn't have a Twitter, but you can read more about her here.We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: [email protected] for this week is "fire extinguisher" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Featured poem:Who Said It Was SimpleBY AUDRE LORDEThere are so many roots to the tree of anger   that sometimes the branches shatter   before they bear.Sitting in Nedicksthe women rally before they march   discussing the problematic girls   they hire to make them free.An almost white counterman passes   a waiting brother to serve them first   and the ladies neither notice nor reject   the slighter pleasures of their slavery.   But I who am bound by my mirror   as well as my bedsee causes in colouras well as sexand sit here wondering   which me will survive   all these liberations.Bad Things Are Going To Happen by Dee DickensAfter Ellen BassBad things are going to happen.You will get your heart brokenby someone who will deny theyever held it in their hands.Bad things are going to happen.You will have to deal with idiotswho think coronavirus is causedby 5G,or the ‘Lady Chemicals’ that are releasedwhen someone’s tongueknows its way around your clit.Bad things are going to happen.Avril Lavigne will actually die.Again.Britney Spears will murder her clone.The moon landing will be proved to be real.The moon will be proved to be real.911 will have been an inside job.Barak will admit he is Kenyan.And we will have nothing to talk about;except art, and music and poetry andwe will have nothing to do;except write poetry and paint andsing. Sing. Sing.And love.Bad things are going to happen.But there is always love.Addicts Die a Thousand Deaths by Christina Thatcher.Christina read from When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie DiazLine that makes you go OOOH from A Litany For Survival by Audre Lorde.Prompt for this week is movement of people

Welcome to the second episode of Dickens and Quips!This week we have Joe Thomas on the show and I shall be reading from How to Carry Fire by Christina Thatcher.Find Sam at @joefishthomas on Twitter and InstaChristina Thatcher is @writetoempower on Twitter. We are atTwitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: [email protected] for this week is "fire extinguisher" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Featured poems:An Improper Kindness Worth TellingWhat IfAll available in How to Carry Fire by Christina Thatcher.Supermarket by Dee Dickens I’m on the floor in the grocery storehowling.Great globbingsobbingsnotty trails on my jumper.Everyone has been so nice.It’s just thatmy brave face is so damn tired.My arms ache from wiping their tears.My throat burns with words unsaid.I make tea and hope they don't taste the salt water.Supermarket guy comes over to ask,Is everything alright?No, supermarket guy, everything is not alright.I want Yorkshire pudding,and I can’t find the batter mix.He’s smiling, but his eyes say confused,there's a tilt of a headfrom a passing old woman telling meI should just make my own.I can’t remember how.I don’t know the ingredients.I can’t focus on anythingbut the emptiness of my belly.Except that I need to haveYeast. To know that something inside me is still alive.Scrimshaw by Eley WilliamsImaginary friend: by Joe ThomasI.I’m an imaginary friendthat’s been thought into existenceor maybe you wished hard enough.I don’t know. You tell me.I’m the madman who fell from the sky,and before anyone says it, I’m not him.Mr love of my life and Mr man of my dreams aren’t nearly chaotic enough.Mr Right’s entrance runs too smoothlyto come down to Earth with a crash.How boring.No, I’m not here to be your first choicebut I know what“I like you…a lot…like more than a friend…but not…you get me?”means when I hear it.Don’t worry. It worked.I’ve been doing thislong enough to knowwe wouldn’t be heretalking right now if it hadn’t.II.If you’re interestedhere are the rules.Take food as a given.If you stalk my social media,if I find a heart reacton a selfie I took with my catbecause I’m in the pictureyou’re doing it wrong.If you scroll past my pictures,“Oh my god!He’s so cute!I LOVE him!”and you didn’t mean the dogbut come out with “I want in,”you’re brave, I’ll give you that much…If you try to make me choose“Who is it going to be?Friend 1Or friend 2?”when ‘universal’by definition means:“BOTH OF YOU.”I’m sorry,it’s not going to work out.III.In return, I can only give you a hugone you can still feel long after it’s finishedone that clings on and will not let you go.If I do it right, it should squeezeevery “You’re not as good as you thinkyou are” thought until they popI write you a pretentious poemwhich, at the end of the day,is just a glorified shitpostthat I crafted to look like a love letterbecause I don’t know how else to say it.And yes, I do it better than mostof your real friends ever couldWe keep our streak going.We let months go by between conversationswhich last for two messages,an unspoken “You didn’t have to answerbut thank you for coming back.”No, being left on read is not rude,we haven’t run out of small talkIt’s an electric “Until next timeLove from an imaginary friendwho was lucky enough to come to life.”Prompt for this week is Fire Extinguisher

Welcome to the first ever episode of Dickens and Quips! This week we have Sam Tate on the show and I shall be reading from My Darling from the Lions by Rachel Long.Find Sam at @samtatepoet on Facebook, Twitter and InstaRachel Long is @rachelnalong on Twitter. #We are at Twitter: @dickensandquipsInstagram: @dickensandquipsEmail: [email protected] for this week is "I dance in my own head" and you don't have to be an established poet to submit a poem.Featured poems:Night VigilI was a choir-girl. Real angel-lightning-faced and giant for my age.Mum let us stay up lateif we went with her to night vigil.It started at midnight, a time too exciting to fathom.How the minute and the hour stood to attention!During Three Members' Prayer, my sister fell asleepunder a chair, so she never knewhow I sang. Or how I fell silentwhen the evangelist with smiling eyes said in his pulpit voiceHere, child.Had she woken, I would have told her, Sleep, sleep!so she'd never know Smiling Eyesalso meant teeth,or that he had blown candle for hands,with which he led me down an incensed corridor,and I followed.by Rachel Long from My Darling from the LionsOrion’s BeltWe sat in the pub,surrounded by poets,conjoined from hip to knee.We walked, smiling,swapping stories ofridiculous siblings, giggling.You showed me howto spot Orion.By his belt and disco shoulders, you said.Not sure if it wasinvitation or starlightin your eyes, I left.On the train home, Orion mocked me from his celestial dance floor.by Dee DickensA Little Closer to the Edge Young enough to believe nothingwill change them, they step, hand-in-hand,into the bomb crater. The night fullof black teeth. His faux Rolex, weeksfrom shattering against her cheek, now dimslike a miniature moon behind her hair.In this version the snake is headless — stilledlike a cord unraveled from the lovers’ ankles.He lifts her white cotton skirt, revealinganother hour. His hand. His hands. The syllablesinside them. O father, O foreshadow, pressinto her — as the field shreds itselfwith cricket cries. Show me how ruin makes a homeout of hip bones. O mother,O minutehand, teach mehow to hold a man the way thirstholds water. Let every river envyour mouths. Let every kiss hit the bodylike a season. Where apples thunderthe earth with red hooves. & I am your son.BY OCEAN VUONGPoetry FoundationHeliosYou are yellow;The colour of sunshine,reflecting off the white of my skin.It’s… blinding.The sun shining,finding the milky-way whites of my eyes.The light was drawninto the dark stone wellof my pupils –and the colour ismuted.What was block yellow,bold and defiant against the darkness,casting shadowslike an excorcist –is, now, less.The shade has become opaque;I can see it,blurring the factory settingsof my optical input.I can see through it.And I have to wonderwhat palet the world would takeif you took away your filter.Would my eyes sing out in monochrome?;Could I ever grow to knowthe pastel kiss of flowers?;The violent strokes of neon?;The duality of sky and sea,as my feet softly diginto the golden frecklesof the beach?Or, would I be resigned to graphite?;My sight surrenderedto the two-hundred and fifty-six shades of grey?Along the left bone of my hip,‘LOVE WINS’ is tattooedin the colours of pride.The yellow ‘E’ is fading;slowly disappearing from my skin.Tell me, will the colour ever stand out again?By Sam TateLine that makes you go OOOOH!"Girl, you're the blackest you ever might be in here"From Communion by Rachel LongNext week, How To Carry Fire by Christina Thatcher

Just over a week to go before we go live with the podcast and I am ridiculously excited. This trailer tells you what you can expect from the show and how you can get involved. For accessibility reasons, where I can, I will be putting scripts and stuff in these show notes. I am passionate about paying people for their labour so will not be able to get transcription done for whole episodes for now. Follow us on @dickensandquips on Twitter and Insta for more updates and if you want to get in touch, email is [email protected], hello and welcome to Dickens and Quips, the podcast that takes the Poe faced out of poetry. I’m your host, Dee Dickens and I invite you to wander round the world of the written word with me while I show you that poetry isn’t all old or dead white men.I’m here to give room for marginalised voices to speak and will be doing so weekly, with the help of a guest poet. You won’t have heard of most of them, but that is the point. There is a universe of amazing poets out there being actual superheroes and I will be helping them fly into your lives.Each week I will be telling you about a poetry collection I’ve had my nose in and reading you my favourite from it. There will be a chance for you to hear writing from guests along with their favourites poems too.Lines that make you go OOOOOH is pretty self explanatory really. There are lines that hit you right in the feels and make you wish you had written them. I will be sharing a new one each week.There will also be a weekly prompt where you can join in the fun and you don’t have to think of yourself as a poet to do so. My favourite each week will be read out too.First episode will be on the 14th of September with poet Sam Tate and I will be reading from the collection My Darling from the Lions by Rachel Long. Going to be amazing so don’t forget to subscribe and follow us on Twitter and Insta. We’re @dickensandquips on both.Have a great week and try to make good choices. If you can’t, well, that’s what writing poetry is for.

This is a placeholder while I sort out doing some actual content! This is a sea shanty I wrote for my dissertation about my fear of drowning because of the inherited trauma of being descended from enslaved people. Co vocals and beautiful harmonies by Anna Fruen to whom I shall always be grateful. Credit is also due to Florence Welch for the inspiration from Sky Full of Song.Find me on twitter at @thepontypoetPoem transcript Mother of My Mothers - A Shanty After Florence Welch Oh mother of my mothers I feel you in the storm I reach for you and  Know that for Tonight I’m not alone.  The father of my fathers Is lost beneath the waves While the man with gun And bible wants to tell me Jesus saves.  And I was sitting at my window Gazing out across the sea And in my grief I swear that You were looking back at me  Whispering the music Of a land so far away Calling me back to a place I always want to stay.  Mother of my mothers No matter where I roam I will always look upon the sea And wish that I was home.  Lying on the ocean floor With seaweed in my hair Singing with the sirens songs of love and songs of care.  Hand in hand I’m so frightened now. I’m scared to die.  Pull me down Where we all drown Leave me where I lie.  And I can tell that you are with me As the storm begins to break When the wind is wrapping round me And my heart begins to ache  It feels like something’s gone That I never got to grasp was lost down on the seabed In one last choking gasp.  And silence is a virtue Or so I have been told So we’ll be oh so quiet In the deep and in the cold  And when the ships are gone On rocks they’ve run aground We’ll drift up to the surface Where our songs of love abound  Mother of my mothers No matter where I roam I will always look upon the sea And wish that I was home.  Lying on the ocean floor With seaweed in my hair Singing with the sirens songs of love and songs of care.  take my hand I’m so frightened now. I’m scared to die.  Pull me down Where we all drown Leave me where I lie.  I thought I was flying But maybe I’m dying now  I thought I was swimming But my light is dimming now  I thought I was sinking But I am clear thinking now Mother of my mothers No matter where I roam I will always look upon the sea And wish that I was home.  Lying on the ocean floor With seaweed in my hair Singing with the sirens songs of love and songs of care.  Hold my hand I’m not frightened now. Not afraid to die.  Pull me down Where we all drown Leave me where I lie.