Beehive Poets
Beehive Pub, Westgate, Bradford
Details not available at time of compilation, but if you turn up at 8.30 p.m. every Monday there will be something
poetical going on.
‘Otley Word Feast’ 9th & 10th March. Various venues, details at www.otleywordfeast.org.uk
A new celebration of the written and spoken word incepted by a group of poets in Otley. They have great-sounding
workshops on during this event, including : ‘Live your Dream’, ‘Developing Characters’ ‘A Stupid Thing to Do!”
(their exclamation mark, not ours) and a ‘Kickstart your Writing Breakfast’.
‘Writing, Asking, Advising: Young Men and Interwar Advice Columns’
14th March, 4.15p.m.
Broadcasting Place, AG03, Leeds Metropolitan University, City Campus, Leeds LS1 3HE. Speaker: Melanie Tebbutt.
An unusual one, this, but well worth mentioning: it has an intriguing feel of hidden history to it.
Wordlife –v- Howdo: Music and Spoken Word
24th March, 7.30 p.m.
The Polish Club, 19-23 Edmund Street, BD5 0BH. Poets, musicians and an open mic. A collaboration between us and
our sister magazine in Sheffield, ‘Now Then’. First one of its kind.
You may have observed by now that the cost is never included in this events section. That’s because most events
are either free or cost the same as a couple of pints or a cheap bottle of wine. Value, not price, is the criterion
here.
Jane Steele
Wuthering Heights
1
The scent of wet grass
And the bleak grey sky stretching out for eternity,
The harsh and unchanging stone.
The brush of your filthy hand against mine,
Our fierce embrace
And the kisses that clung to your lips
Like dirt.
Speak to me now,
All I will hear is the roar of the wind in my ears.
How I wish it would tear me apart.
Once I clung to the skin of this world just for you,
Now I die filled with spite,
Now I pray that you mourn till the earth turns to ash.
2
You taught me to worship the ground under me,
To taste life and death
In the air and to scream at the hills
Without making a sound.
You were the wind that tore at my flesh,
The rocks that broke me when I fell
And the rain drops that clung to my skin.
I couldn’t shake off the filth of you.
Now I hold you in the palm of my hand,
As small as the egg of the last dying bird.
I cradle you desperately,
And my embrace will break every last
Bone in your body.
3
The landscape still breathes,
Vast and unchanging,
Still made of stone.
The black rocks glisten,
The grey sky aches with the burden of rain
And the wind tears through the land,
Quite unperturbed at the loss
Of two hatless savages
Racing each other
To the ends of
The earth.
Gwen Greenwood
25
