Biography
Jacqueline Gabbitas’s poetry chapbooks are Mid Lands (Hearing Eye, 2007), Earthworks and Small Grass (Stonewood Press, 2012 and 2014). She has been published in Poetry Review and The Forward Book of Poetry (Faber) and has read at various festivals and events including The Times Oxford Literary Festival and for BBC Radio 3’s The Verb. Jacqueline is a Hawthornden Fellow and co-editor of Brittle Star magazine.
Samples
Oxygen As there is sun, there’s life. As god speaks, there’s life too. And I grow, And trees grow. And algae has always grown. As there is rain, there’s life. As god weeps, there’s life too. And I breathe, And trees breathe. But algae is holding its breath; For as there’s a world, there’s an end. As god sees, algae sees too: A boiling land, A burning sea. And the air stripped out and empty. from Small Grass (Stonewood Press) Songs of Coal Sparks and the blunting of your blade. Moss is collected, bark stripped off the silverest of birches. Call me peat. I give you the flame, small and fuelled. You smell it as it burns even this earth. * Remember that first giving: its warmth carried in your hands, strapped to your back, a rough cart. You tunnel now; strip carbon black from brown. Call me anthracite. Ready me here for excavation. Control your explosions – a network, diamonding the seam in which I am. Remember the giving. And you, you find a safe place. Detonate. A spark, explosion. Rock splinters and falls. Set me aside. from Earthworks (Stonewood Press)
All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.
Blog entries by Jacqueline Gabbitas
Brittle Star competition extended to 18th March (02/03/2016)
Blog link: https://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/jacquelinegabbitas
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