{"id":2560,"date":"2010-11-30T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T17:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=2560"},"modified":"2010-11-27T20:47:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-27T07:47:20","slug":"tuesday-poem-blue-by-catherine-fitchett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/11\/30\/tuesday-poem-blue-by-catherine-fitchett\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Blue” by Catherine Fitchett"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the first week
\nthe sea is the dark blue of the mountains
\nbetween the blooming heather and the first snowfall.<\/p>\n

In the second week
\nthe sea is the greyish blue of her Sunday best sateen
\nwhich she wore when they first met.<\/p>\n

In the fifth week
\nthere are storms. White waves crash on the deck.
\nThrough her porthole she sees a sea as green-blue as his eyes
\nthat caught her gaze when he asked for her hand in marriage.<\/p>\n

In the eighth week
\nher child sickens.
\nthey are becalmed in the turquoise blue of the bracelet
\non her sister\u2019s arm, waving at the dockside.<\/p>\n

In the ninth week
\nthe days grow shorter. At twilight
\nthe sea is the inky blue of the words in her diary,
\nrecording births, deaths and distance travelled.<\/p>\n

In the last week
\nthey bury her child. The ship is enclosed by sea and sky
\nthe blue of the eggshell she found on the path to the byre.
\nNearby an unfledged chick with staring eyes,
\ncovered in flies.<\/p>\n

The next week she unpacks seeds brought from home,
\nplants cabbages and carrots,
\nmarigolds, poppies and nasturtiums.
\nThe cornflower seed, she sets aside.
\nIn summer the garden is aflame
\nwith red, orange and yellow
\nbut no blue
\nnot any scrap of blue.<\/p>\n

(c) Catherine Fitchett<\/p>\n

Published in Flap<\/em>: The Chook Book 2<\/em>, (The Hen House) 2010<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

This is another Tuesday Poem selection from the recently released Flap: The Chook Book 2<\/em><\/strong> by Christchurch poets Victoria Broome, Catherine Fitchett, Barbara McCartney and Christina Stachurski. Blue <\/strong><\/em>is from Catherine\u2019s section of the anthology: as strong as eggshells.<\/em> I am a great admirer of Catherine’s poetry and have liked Blue<\/em> since Catherine frst read it at a Canterbury Poets’ Collective reading at Madras Cafe Bookshop a few years back.<\/p>\n

About Catherine:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Catherine Fitchett grew up in Wellington, where she did some writing in high school but studied chemistry at university. She has had several careers as a forensic scientist\/toxicologist, full time mother of five, and currently works in the accounting field. Catherine’s varied interests have included quiltmaking and genealogy as well as poetry, which she returned to writing after attending a Canterbury University summer school course with Bernadette Hall in 1999.\u00a0 She is now a member of the small poetry group, The Poetry Chooks, which formed shortly after. The group have two collections published, The Chook Book<\/em>, and the recently released Flap, The Chook Book 2. <\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/em><\/p>\n

To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog<\/strong>\u2014and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world\u2014either click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue In the first week the sea is the dark blue of the mountains between the blooming heather and the first snowfall. In the second week the sea is the greyish blue of her Sunday best sateen which she wore when they first met. In the fifth week there are storms. White waves crash on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560","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=2560"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2566,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560\/revisions\/2566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}