The Brittle Sea

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Friday Poem – ‘Steel’ by Paul Henry

To celebrate the Six Nations and St David’s Day on the 1st March, this week’s Friday Poem is ’Steel‘ by Paul Henry from The Brittle Sea: New and Selected Poems.

This cover shows an abstract painting by Antony Goble of a red moon-shaped face amidst a swirling blue seal The text reads: Paul Henry, The Brittle Sea, New and Selected Poems

With a musician’s ear and an artist’s eye, Paul Henry’s poems of love and fatherhood, informed by the Welsh-speaking community of his childhood, bridge both the rural and urban experience. The Brittle Sea reacquaints readers with Henry’s vast gallery of characters, from the boy having his hair cut in ‘Daylight Robbery’ to the ghosts of his long, Newport poem, ‘Between Two Bridges.’ The new poems section includes the popular ‘Steel’, inspired by the Welsh national rugby team; others which revisit some of ‘The Visitors’ from The Milk Thief; and a moving elegy for the painter Anthony Goble.

Steel (i) 10 Turn like a key in the game’s lock and open the score with a kick – open a door in the air onto blue sky. I dreamt I opened a door in the sky and half the world cheered. I dreamt I surfaced into a roar. No sky was like this before. Dart like a hare through a hedge at dusk and open the score with a try – open a door in the earth. I dreamt I opened a door in the earth and rose into light out of an underworld where, for years, I carried their ghosts on my back. Flash like a link in a steel chain like the sun on the sea or a wave in the industry of a rising tide. I dreamt I surfaced into a roar. The seagulls shrill as whistles were red and white. I dreamt my ghosts had taken flight.

The Brittle Sea is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Paul Henry’s forthcoming collection As if To Sing is available to pre-order now on the Seren website. Publishing 11th April 2022.

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Friday Poem – ‘Love Birds’, Paul Henry

Friday Poem Love Birds Paul Henry

As an early celebration of Saint Valentine’s Day, this week’s Friday Poem is ‘Love Birds’ from Paul Henry’s The Brittle Sea: New and Selected Poems.

the_brittle_sea72The ritualistic moments of connection in ‘Love Birds’ defy the couple’s physical separation, and we see a resilience and unification almost comical in its persistence. ‘The screws must laugh’ at this display, yet it is sombre and essential, an anchor against ‘the difficult, unreal dawns’ faced alone.

The Brittle Sea contains a substantial selection of Paul Henry’s beautifully crafted poems from the last two decades, plus new material. The individual human voice, the ragged vagaries of the heart and soul, the joys and sorrows of family life feature here but this poetry is personal without being confessional, preferring tender observation to sensationalism or didacticism.

Love Birds

They rendezvous each night, at ten,
for ten minutes, behind closed eyes,
he in his cell, she in the brown rocker.
And once a fortnight, for half an hour,
their fingers form a desperate nest,
remembering the robin he’d fed
that misses him at the back door,
its freedom disorientated.

The screws must laugh at these love birds,
each week’s confetti of letters,
or secretly gain faith from matching
her sentences to his.

He hears her singing Porgi Amor
in the difficult, unreal dawns
when the walls barge further into him
and terrible lights flash in his mind.
When the bars of his hands close tightly on
what might prove the last breath
of some precious, invisible creature.

She knows all this, waiting
in the early kitchen, lovingly timing
two cracked eggs in a saucepan.

Get your copy of The Brittle Sea: New and Selected Poems from the Seren website: £9.99

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