The London based Greta Bellamacina is a poet, writer and film-maker who was featured in our very first issue and also an influence for The Forumist. Greta has just released her collaborative poetry project and book with the title “Points For Time in the Sky” on the 22nd of October.
This project is breaking new grounds in English poetry, not only by finding inspiration from a 8th century Japanese technique but also by experimenting with the process of the writing. This work was completed in a collaboration with Scottish artist and poet Robert Montgomery known for his text installations across different medias. The duo executed the writing by using the same laptop, in the same Word document, over a period of months.
The result is genius. AnOther Magazine commented in a recent interview “modern and weird… equally full of echoes of WB Yeats, as they are of Tesco and Frank Lampard. Their words are shrewd and witty, presenting a quintessentially British view of the world.”
Here is an exclusive poem from “Points For Time in the Sky”
The Cotswolds
that leaving page you wrote
if the goodbyes were your poems and the breakings
then these are nothinged beginnings
these are still beginnings cos I never wrote goodbyes
temporary silences maybe til I was able
but I told you they were temporary I’m sure
at least with my eyes
just like my forgottern grandfather who touched the skies
the insertion of the silent r in estuary English is ridiculed in the North
and the ruined kisses which make music
don’t really excuse the ruined castles of Scotland
or the land cleared for sheep
in a morning room, where light is morning
and the wood paneling has that Farrow&Ball paled green colour
I always imagine and wondered who cut the wood
who were the first carpenters of the grander houses
What would Hardy think of us for sitting here pretending with our host that his wine cellar is the best in the whole Cotswolds
without ever thinking about the carpenters
making of the trap door
guarding of the lillies
librarying of the arboretum
protection of the daisies
prodigalisation of the sad returned from boarding school children
the passing around of Engels in the basement
the idea of hugs for the children
the idea of libraries
the airing of the smoked winds
then Tatiana’s face trapped in a window
of what house
with what sense of trapped privilege
the stained glass windows of the grander houses of England could have been simpler
needn’t have borrowed Religion
could just have kept
the simple silhouettes of their unhugged children
standing behind them
looking to the fields for what dust or donkeys
making for sunlight
the outlines
who’s eyes were then cast and cut
for the purpose of colour
then Tatiana’s face trapped in a window
of what house
with what sense of trapped privilege
the stained glass windows of the grander houses of England could have been simpler
needn’t have borrowed Religion
could just have kept
the simple silhouettes of their unhugged children
standing behind them
looking to the fields for what dust or donkeys
making for sunlight
the outlines
who’s eyes were then cast and cut
for the purpose of colour
Credits:
Greta Bellamacina & Robert Montgomery