{"id":10512,"date":"2011-12-20T08:03:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T19:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=10512"},"modified":"2011-12-20T20:38:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T07:38:37","slug":"tuesday-poem-winter-light-by-kathleen-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/12\/20\/tuesday-poem-winter-light-by-kathleen-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Winter Light” by Kathleen Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winter Light<\/strong><\/p>\n

Horizontal strobes
\nacross the russeting slope<\/p>\n

disclose the contours of the land<\/p>\n

the fierce geography of rock
\nthe patterning of sheep through bracken
\nlipped water-marks on sand<\/p>\n

The mountain\u2019s shadow
\nbruises the lake.<\/p>\n

The season is wintering in<\/p>\n

and the cold is like loss:
\na cramping hold on bone
\nmuscle, thought, spilling in<\/p>\n

from the east.<\/p>\n

The air tastes metallic
\nlike snow dissolving on the tongue.<\/p>\n

This is the death month;
\nDecember’s Druid alphabet
\nthat signified<\/p>\n

the rebirth of the spirit.<\/p>\n

Ash trees clumsy with unshed seeds,
\na deer\u2019s tooth grooving the bark.
\nI glimpse a snowdrop spiking up<\/p>\n

through a dead leaf<\/p>\n

before the\u00a0 falling sun herds
\nus into the longest night.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kathleen Jones<\/p>\n

.<\/span>~ published in Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21<\/span>, Templar Poetry, 2011<\/p>\n

Reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About the Poem:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or firstly, about the collection, Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21<\/span>. <\/em>It is only Saturday since I featured Kathleen Jones’ new collection as a “Just Arrived” here<\/a>. I said then that I was very keen to read it, not just because Kathleen is a fellow Tuesday Poet but also because the manuscript <\/em>had won the\u00a0Straid Collection Award<\/a> in 2010. I also wrote that I had liked what I saw in my initial quick peek at the poems. Since then I have been reading avidly, and although I have not yet finished the collection I\u00a0 can tell you that I love what I have read so far—so much so that I would like to feature a considerable number of the poems here of a Tuesday!<\/p>\n

Fortunately for me, today is the solstice: summer solstice here in New Zealand and the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.\u00a0 Again fortunately, one of those poems that I have really enjoyed in Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21<\/span> is Winter Light<\/em>, a poem that addresses the longest night—or in our case down here, the longest day. But Kathleen is a northern hemisphere poet, so for her this is winter solstice—and so fitting, I thought, to ask to feature Winter Light<\/em> today. I am delighted that she has agreed.<\/p>\n

About the Poet:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born and brought up on a hill farm in the north of England, Kathleen Jones read law and then English Literature at university before specialising in early women writers — work that culminated in A Glorious Fame<\/span> (Bloomsbury, 1988) the life of\u00a0 the 17th century Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.<\/p>\n

Kathleen spent several years in Africa and the Middle East — where she worked in English broadcasting — before returning to England.\u00a0 Her published work includes radio journalism, articles for magazines and newspapers, short fiction and eleven books — a mixture of biography, general non-fiction and two poetry collections. Her biographies include:-\u00a0 A Passionate Sisterhood<\/span> (Virago, 2000) — an account of the lives of the women who lived with the \u2018lake poets\u2019, which\u00a0 was reviewed in the TLS as \u2018a fascinating, marvellous, utterly absorbing book . . .\u00a0 the stuff your English teacher never told you\u2019;\u00a0 Learning not to be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti<\/span> (OUP, 1992) which was Doris Lessing\u2019s \u2018book of the year\u2019;\u00a0 and Catherine Cookson: the Biography<\/span> (Time Warner, 1999), which the Literary Review described as \u2018a compelling account\u2019 of Cookson\u2019s life and work.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Kathleen Jones’ most recent\u00a0 biography, Katherine Mansfield: The Story-teller<\/span>,<\/em> was published by Penguin in 2010 and Edinburgh University Press in December 2011. Her latest collection of poetry,\u00a0 Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21<\/span>, winner of the Straid Collection Award, was published by Templar Poetry in November 2011.<\/p>\n

Kathleen\u2019s home is in Cumbria, but as her partner is a sculptor working in Italy she spends a lot of time flying between the two on budget airlines!\u00a0 She has taught creative writing in a number of universities and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Further information may be found at: www.kathleenjones.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon<\/strong> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter Light Horizontal strobes across the russeting slope disclose the contours of the land the fierce geography of rock the patterning of sheep through bracken lipped water-marks on sand The mountain\u2019s shadow bruises the lake. The season is wintering in and the cold is like loss: a cramping hold on bone muscle, thought, spilling in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10512"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10548,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512\/revisions\/10548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}