Biography
Anna’s first collection, From the Doggerlanders was published in May 2024 by London Poetry Books. Last year four of her poems were commissioned by the British Council award-winning photographer and film maker, Peter Bromley for his zine, Voir. Poems have been published in the Lampeter Review and her poem about her father’s dementia was shortlisted by poet Anthony Vahni Capaldeo for the Alzheimer’s society poem of the year in 2019. Her poems have been broadcast on East London Radio and film poems on Outdoor verses in an Indoor World. Anna’s poem Blighted Bucks, is representing her county in Fin Hall’s film compendium about the different counties of the UK. . A child of northern art teacher parents in rural Bucks, she spent a year training to be an actor at E15 and performs her poems regularly; feature spots include Paper Tiger, Islington’s Poetry Shack and Talking Rhythm. She has MC'd at Survivors Poetry and at the Multicultural Book Fair.
Three poems published in From the Doggerlanders by London Poetry Books
My Mother and Mother-in-Law My Mother and Mother-in-law are carefully curating my late middle-aged body as though Miss World talent scouts might take a run at me in Catford market squashing my over ripe avocados and appraising my hourglass to see if it is still ticking. Arriving at Doreen’s to blitz the house, mow her lawn, put out the bins, listen to her anecdotes, nurse her bunions and maybe take her for a spin to Tesco, I am commanded to step on the scales. Invitation ignored, still she speculates the heftage, like we were doing a guess the weight of the cake contest……. (My sponge has a very saggy bottom) At 8am she was distressed I was ‘lolling about on the floor’………. (Doing yoga to make me stronger and less fat) ‘I didn’t say you were fat, but you may have read my mind’ said she... Meanwhile, Joan has different tactics: in the charity shop she broadcasts as I am rifling through the rails, ‘Is that an extra-large coat you are looking for, Anna’? ‘My daughter in law moves about so much she should look like Twiggy’! Instead of............... She shut up before she said ‘Hattie Jaques’! But I read her mind... Dedicated with love to Doreen (size 18) & Joan (previously size 20, now 14) Mum’s Newspaper Nest Mum, 89, hatches headlines on her newspaper nest on the sofa. It’s a stand-off when I try and clear away a few. She wants to keep current with last year’s colour supplements. I get an earful and silently scream on the loo. Neither of us has the patience to be patients or the parenting skills to parent the other. We’re jumbled up now between child and mother. What I found in the Pond In the spring-fed water I find pondweed, Two skimming kingfishers kissing, Moorhens and coots on the make And myself, the lesser spotted Red-breasted middle-aged bird. One cold March dawn. The water kissing my philtrum, Arouses some ancestral memory. Atlantean? Permian? Whatever? I’m in my element. The relief of seven degrees of froideur, When your womanliness is combusting…. The thrill of the burning chill reaching parts Which may have been hibernating. This spring fires me with an ardour I thought long since sighed for Fuelling soul’s evolution and Wild woman’s salvation.
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