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22nd December, 2023

Friday Poem – ‘Rememory’ by Nerys Williams

Snowy UK street in the morning

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Rememory’ by Nerys Williams from her third collection Republic. You can listen to our in depth interview with Nerys about Republic in episode 6 of The Seren Poetry Podcast Series 2.

19. Rememory I am lost in the contorted image of a pub. I scroll back to the pedestrian image but cannot get away from a couple who have ordered their dinner and are waiting. Faces pixelated, seated at a polished table. Thankfully I see the emergency exit. My cursor and I stumble down the patterned carpet step, finally to air and traffic. I have been “home” already, though home is a walk from my ex-boyfriend’s house near a cathedral graveyard. I never noticed that we had a back gate, it was rarely warm enough to hang our washing. Bell practice every Wednesday night, even with closed shutters, ear plugs, trying to enter Californian poetry for its last glimmer of warmth – discordant knells punctuated words. Naming the plants I never saw: Meadowsweet, Queen Anne’s Lace, Morning glory. Winter’s dazzling days, snow on the morning street. Marrow-cold in a house with only a small gas fire, cotton duvets, sheeted ice, socks in bed. Desperate for a taste of sun, the philosopher and I bought avocados, mashed them, added lemon and salt, turned up the heater. Our knitted-selves toasted dappled light with each dip.
Memories of my younger self often circle gatherings at modest feasts. Follow the cursor to a café filled with coffee, panettone and ice cream, orange, pink and green sweet boxes stacked on the shelves. Or, do I turn the corner to find my student-self? Encountering a stalker past bushes and winding river, I ran home breathless, sick. The night of celebrating scholarships to the US the philosopher, filmmaker and I were manifesto making. A night imagining passage on a liner, careering to Sinatra, romanticising ourselves in steerage. The figure at my heels gaining the measure of my two-step, three-step, four-step five-step, six, seven, eight…

The full box set of The Seren Poetry Podcast Series 2 is now available to listen to on your favourite podcast app. Search for The Seren Poetry Podcast and click like, follow or subscribe to have all future episodes delivered straight to your podcast feed.

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Related Books

Republic

Nerys Williams

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