The Deep End Calls for National Poetry Day and other poems…

Today is National Poetry Day, so we thought we’d share a couple of poems. The first was written at the Fun Palace on 1st October as part of a water-themed haiku challenge. A Haiku is a poem with 3 lines; the first with 5 syllables, the second with 7, and then the third with 5.

Twisting with the wave.

The boy is coming to shore.

Smiling happily.

Anon.

The second poem was written by Mary Chafer, one of the University of Birmingham drama students who devised and performed The Deep End back in April. For those of you who came to see the show, I expect you’ll remember it!

THE DEEP END CALLS

This building is flooded with the light from above
And drowning in echoes of a persistent past.

Splash, tick, drip…
Permission is granted.
History repeated, reworked and revisioned;
What seeds have been planted?

Wartime washhouse in the winter months
Until Jean rides in on her wonder wave…
‘Get on your dancing shoes Sandra and let’s have a ball’
We bring the life to this water after all.

Splash, tick, drip…
Rain seeps through the crack.
History is here in this sunken bath.
It’s time to look forward, but first let’s look back.

The long hot summer melts the ice from the bones;
Oh the Sixties did swing whilst the Seventies swam
And there stood history taking it in,
Whilst the people, they watched, and they wiled her to win.

Splash, tick, drip…
Tell us, does she stand here alone?
A pressure too great, the cause of collapse.
Sometimes at night hear her solitary moan.

But the people! Oh the people, they came,
Writing their words on the walls of her memory.
Now they begin to craft her future with needle and crane.
They lost it all, but have it all to gain.

This building is flooded with light from above
And drowning in echoes of a persistent past.
Stirchley, she’s here now, we’ve got her, at last.

Mary Chafer

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