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Lesley Harrison ~ poetry etc

December 7, 2019

New Writing Scotland 2019

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November 30, 2019November 30, 2019

Stanza 2020

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November 30, 2019

Shoormal, Shetland

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July 3, 2019

North Sea poems

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July 3, 2019November 30, 2019

Dr Lesley Harrison

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July 3, 2019

‘Try to Be Better’ – W.S. Graham

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April 22, 2019

‘Forty Voices Strong’

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April 12, 2019

Aberdeen MayFest reading, 25th May

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April 12, 2019April 22, 2019

Orkney poems published in Landscapes

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DISAPPEARANCE

DISAPPEARANCE     [extract]

I must have disturbed him when I came up the companion .… He was unapproachable, as a misfit should be.
– Donald Crowhurst, logbook of the Teighnmouth Electron. 29th January 1969.

 

[…]
How, singlehanding in a bad storm,
light-poor, deprived of sleep, beyond isolation

and fatigue as the boat took a beating
shedding green tons, letting the dark in

through shuddering deck boards;
working at waking, the tiller jammed hard

at his side while the boat leaned and leaned,
the second up front, watching the sea’s sliding surface

as it brimmed and fell while he nursed the boat across
great holes that closed and opened

beside them, the two of them watching for minutes
as the storm fretted and at last began

to fail, the boat butting forward, correcting its roll
in small calms, riding weightless

as the surface formed
itself and held, the wind sighing

in one vast outbreath,
and then he was alone again.

 

From Disappearance : North Sea Poems, publ. Shearsman, 2020.

[Photo from Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous, by Door Jan Verwoert. MIT Press, 2006.]

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