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    Inroads
    Inroads
    Inroads
    Ebook67 pages33 minutes

    Inroads

    By Carolyn Jess-Cooke

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    About this ebook

    Intelligent and humorous, this debut collection showcases multi-faceted and often paradoxical poetry from a talented female writer. Touching upon various topicsfrom the versatility of language and modern cable TV shows to the difficulties of childhood and the power of maternal lovethis compilation brilliantly utilizes satire and metaphor to evoke both laughter and heartbreak. Fans of poetry and women writers will enjoy discovering this striking new voice.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeren
    Release dateFeb 1, 2012
    ISBN9781854116154
    Inroads
    Author

    Carolyn Jess-Cooke

    Carolyn Jess-Cooke is an award-winning poet, academic, editor and novelist published in 23 languages. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, and founder of the Stay-at-Home Literary Festival.

    Read more from Carolyn Jess Cooke

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      Book preview

      Inroads - Carolyn Jess-Cooke

      Seren is the book imprint of

      Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

      57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 3AE

      www.serenbooks.com

      The right of Carolyn Jess-Cooke to be identified asthe author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

      © Carolyn Jess-Cooke 2010

      ISBN: 978-1-85411-615-4 (EPUB edition)

      A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

      The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.

      Cover art: ‘A Ten-Penny Prophet’ by Jamie Baldridge.

      Ebook conversion by Caleb Woodbridge.

      Author’s website/blog: www.therisktakersguide.com

      To my children

      and in memory of my stepbrother

      Lance Corporal Nigel David Moffett

      killed in action

      in Afghanistan, 30th May 2009

      Carolyn Jess-Cooke

      Inroads

      A world with a hundred kinds of home will accommodate

      a thousand kinds of homesickness. 

      – Pico Iyer, The Global Soul

      Accent

      Stowaway inflections and locally-produced slang

      have passports of their own, a visa for the twang

            that tells me you’re not Xhosa

      but a Geordie raised in Grahamstown, maybe. It’s a blitz

      of souvenirs on the ears, the way you bring your bliss

            of home that much closer.

      Home? Or everywhere? Like combing coral

      or sand and snow globes, or a wave-shaped petal

            from Sydney’s Manly Cove

      my voice fossils places. The way sound chases

      itself in tunnels and halls, the way senses

            fold memory into five

      is an accent’s suitcase aesthetic. Listen.

      There’s an address, a postcard in the tone,

            the foreign rhythm

      and that emphasis, that accent on the off-beat

      which echoes longing clearly; the picked-up place-music speaks

            where you ache to be, with whom.

      Open-Mic Night at the Memory Karaoke

      Memories restage the past in nostalgia’s spotlight.

      The mind’s golden hits

      are fished out of the karaoke box

      and dribbled back into the mic,

      but with a difference. Contestants stagger

      to counterpoint under the influence.

      Our first flat gets up. I cringe at the damp-

      stains, the broken fire, expect it to sing

      controversial recreations

      of my dirty laundry. Instead it rings

      out bad times without their sting: no loo

      for three whole weeks (the crowd finds this funny);

      an argument’s subtexts in the key of

      triviality; slap-stick orchestrations

      of an ant-hunt with deodorant.

      Next, a Russian doll from Berlin sheds skins

      like a girl thinning into silence

      until she is lost in mistranslation.

      My first car revs speed convictions under

      a blare of

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