Coach House Series by Paul Hawkins
cut-up text
medium: mixed media on found card
dimensions: various
date: 2016
1. ‘a sigh, a sorrow, a suspicious mind’
A Woman Learns
A woman learns when she is young
That all of her is a weapon
Against a world that is determined
To mould her softness into something
Convenient, hard, eventually,
a disappearance.
Nottingham-born Henry Normal co-wrote the Royle Family, Mrs Merton and many other television comedies, was a co-director with Steve Coogan of Baby Cow Productions and Executive Producer of ‘I Believe in Miracles’, the real life story of Nottingham Forest’s European Cup triumph. As it turns, we share educational, musical tastes and neurology – although Henry has made far better use of his – and it was a pleasure to interview him about his influences, autism, family and future plans, particularly his return to his first love, poetry.
– Trevor Wright.
You’ve recently left Baby Cow and started to re-engage with poetry. What was the thinking behind that?
I worked in television for about thirty years. I’ve always loved comedy, I think there’s something akin with comedy and poetry and it comes down to truth. I think you’re searching for truth in poetry and there are certain things you only laugh at if they’re true. Comedy is a bit like playing a musical instrument, you know when it’s off tune and you know when it’s right. Comedy is exact, whereas poetry requires a little bit more imagination, and a little bit more interpretation. Continue reading “‘Find A Way Of Saying It’ – A Burning House Press Interview With Nottingham’s Henry Normal”
Acrylic on raw canvas, a series of untitled paintings. Black and white distribution of raw energy. “I had no end in sight. The paintings were executed while listening – obsessively – to Big Black’s ‘The Hammer Party,’ very loud, in a garage…”
Continue reading “No End In Sight, untitled paintings by Michael McAloran”
Look Up
I
Sovereign fires
Crane their necks thin
Hovering upon faultless feet
Weary scythes drop eaves
Overlook brothers of sleep,
Taking age to the face of day
Above brilliant margins
Drowsing sentinels
Illuminate the mainstream Continue reading “‘Look Up’ by Adam Steiner”
Light Buried Underground
1
Weeping woman, look up here.
It seems a beautiful day.
Ovals lay eggs. We have flowers.
Even a simple call can turn into a racket,
self-reflection in bright yellow.
2
You are different now.
But not bad different.
Just, you know, not like 1999.
Go die, come back, I’ll love you.
Love will save us, love will save us.
Violet hearts run crimson tides. Continue reading “5 Assemblages by Howie Good”
hostage
red-tailed hawk, I unfurl
my Refrains,
flexing towards the bend in the shadow
crouched,
my beak
I grip, taste iron in my talons (trap set low)
my four offenses lining up the prey Continue reading “3 Poems by Cindy Savett”
Until Tomorrow
i light a quick cig & have a seat while the rain slowly sets in. a woman begins citing the new words of her god,
the new sunken scripture:
“it’s a new age on planet earth!” before pacing her step & clapping her hands “it’s the eighth day! june tenth, twenty-sixteen. june tenth, twenty-sixteen. i grew up in…”
then she vanishes. Continue reading “‘Until Tomorrow’ by Jordan Lucien Pansky”
THE BURN OF YOUTH
I stand tall
like the charred silhouette
of a tree that has lasted
through fire, and
I long for the burn of youth. Continue reading “4 Poems by Beate Sigriddaughter”
Snakehill
We grind keys on sandstone sacraments
(names dates loves and was eres)
Territorially recorded, awaiting time’s erosion
Through nights and days this hide away
For anyone escaping
Something Continue reading “3 Poems by Jim Gibson”
Funeral Of The Inside
My heart died inside
my chest last night
I said my goodbyes
while I carved
its initials in a tree.
I buried the remnants
in a hole
deeper than my regret. Continue reading “3 Poems by Adam Levon Brown”
Every fire begins with a spark, a small flame that ignites a conflagration. Where does that spark originate? No one could have known that when Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to his body on December 17, 2010 his act of self-immolation would trigger protests in Tunisia and throughout the Arab region. He was the spark that lit up the world.
In By Fire: Writings on the Arab Spring, Tahar Ben Jelloun writes about Bouazizi in two distinct ways. In the first part of the book are selections from Ben Jelloun’s nonfiction writings about the Arab Spring. In the second part of the book is Ben Jelloun’s short story “By Fire,” which enters the mind of Bouazizi and attempts to capture the nuances of his life. Both parts are necessary and complement each other. Translator Rita S. Nezami’s notes and introductions do an excellent job of contextualizing Bouazizi’s act of protest and providing much-needed information for Western readers to understand the political climate in Tunisia before the Arab Spring.
Five-Fold Symmetries
If I present myself to them
What of their measurement and their avoidance?
It is a survival, a learning to live
A pellicle thin as skin on black tea.
Few poets don’t wear the mask. Continue reading “‘Five-Fold Symmetries’ by Liz Zumin”
BREXIT
“I don’t want peoples’ change mate I want a change for people like me who people like you write poems about that no fucker will read because it makes em feel bad. People want happy endings and I ain’t it”
– Lou, Ring Road, Cov
In full view she slept in shrink-wrap popping like a real fire
And she was, she was a real fire petering out in the ghost grey blitz.
In full view she slept presenting a problem in the Al-Fresco wonderland
It’s not good for business bringing your problems from home into our work? Continue reading “3 Poems by Antony Owen”
I can’t remember the first time I saw Sharon’s art. The more conversations we have now, the more I find out that I’ve known her works before knowing they were hers.
And I’ve not only known them, I’ve loved them from the doubled distance of outsider and audience. I remember engaging with the sculptural, interactive pieces of ‘Portable Sensors’ back in 2013, a difficult year as I was sure I would never recover from returning to a country that took the concept of ‘home’ away from me. The angry noises that screamed out of these buzz wire kits were relieving; contained electrical protests to match the claustrophobia I felt about my geographical predicament. Continue reading “Talking Stories with Sharon Chin”
Macro created by the artist Penny Goring from a found version of The Busman’s Prayer. Continue reading “‘The Busman’s Prayer’ macro by Penny Goring”
“The Fundamental Poetry Of Presence”
Submissions to Burning House press are still open – keep sending us your poems stories art non-fiction photography etc upon the wild wild wing xx https://burninghousepress.com/submissions/
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