Guest post: Cathy Bryant on ‘Fantasy, love and oddity’

Welcome to the ‘Look At All The Women’ Carnival: Week 1 – ‘The Lovers’

This post was written especially for inclusion in the three-week-long ‘Look At All The Women’ carnival, hosted by Mother’s Milk Books, to celebrate the launch of Cathy Bryant’s new book ‘Look At All The Women’. This week our participants share their thoughts on the theme ‘The Lovers’ (the first chapter in Cathy’s poetry collection).

Please read to the end of the post for a full list of carnival participants.

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I’m delighted to be taking part in the Mother’s Milk Books Blog Carnival that is taking place to celebrate the launch of my new book, Look at All the Women. This first week of the Carnival is dedicated to the theme ‘The Lovers’, so here are two poems from that particular section of my new book. The first is very Me, I think – elements of fantasy, love and oddity, with my ever-present love for the sea. Who would have thought that Bridlington in December could be so beautiful?

Brid, December

Bold gemini moon full on
and the waves fly up to meet it.
The sea stirs; every last creature
swims or wriggles up to drink
the light, taste the moon’s essence.

A streetlamp bravely does its best.
Oi! Look at me! Regard! I shine too!
It gets in the way, spoiling photos.
Vampires and tourists slink off in disgust.

Lovers ignore it. The moon, the sea,
each other – there’s nothing else
but warm, clean-sheeted beds.
Light is light, isn’t it?

No. You could skim the silver
from the waves with one hand,
and make your face holy with it,
immortal.

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The second poem is addressed to the poet William Carlos Williams and is a response to his poem ‘This is Just to Say’: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/245576. I love his poetry and I can see how important it is – but I wouldn’t have wanted to live next door to him. You wouldn’t be able to put the bins out without him staring in wonder, lost in the moment due to the colour of your nail varnish or petunias. So I wrote this tongue-in-cheek reply:

Dear William

It’s not just the plums.
You are so plainly
a selfish man

living in the moment,
the personal moment
all for yourself.

The divorce papers
are in the post.
This feels so sweet
and deliciously cold.

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Happy loving everyone, and see you next week!
Cathy x

Look At All The Women, by Cathy Bryant

Look At All The Women is now available to buy from:

The Mother’s Milk Bookshop (as a paperback and PDF) – we can ship books around the world!

and as a paperback from Amazon.co.uk.

It can also be ordered via your local bookshop.

If you’d like to know more about the ‘Look At All The Women’ carnival please find more details about it here.

Please take the time to read and comment on the following fab posts submitted by some wonderful women:

‘Fantasy, love and oddity.’ — Cathy Bryant, guest posting at Mother’s Milk Books, shares two of her favourite poems about lovers from her second collection of poetry, Look At All The Women.

‘The Walnut Hearts’Marija Smits shares some ‘nutty’ poetry about love and reflects on the role good communication has on a harmonious relationship.

Georgie St Clair shares her feelings on why we should indulge our passions as lovers in her lighthearted post — ‘Creative Lovers: Not Tonight Darling’.

‘The Lovers – Or What I Don’t Know About Love’ — Kimberly Jamison posts to her blog The Book Word what she has learnt about love from story books, people watching and her own life and wonders if she actually knows anything at all.

‘Explicit v Implicit’ — Ana Salote at Colouring Outside the Lines considers literature’s role in teaching children about relationships.

Carnival time! And images still needed…

We’re getting ever closer to the publication of Cathy’s new book (eek!) and I really want to release it with a noisy, multi-coloured send-off, so if you think you can help me do that, please do get involved!

If you’re a writer, artist or blogger who’d like to showcase your own creativity, why not take part in our blogging carnival? All the details can be found here:

https://mothersmilkbooks.com/carnival-2/

Also…

We’ve had some lovely images of mothers, daughters and babies breastfeeding sent in for the YouTube video but we still need more images of women. If you think you’ve got an image that may well fit Cathy’s great poem ‘Look At All The Women’, please do email me them. My email address is: [email protected]

Thanks for considering getting involved; I will look forward to seeing more of your wonderful creations!