Domestic Cherry

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Issue 1 Domestic Cherry 1

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Domestic Cherry

Transcript of Domestic Cherry

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Issue 1!

!

Domestic Cherry

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Domestic Cherry

In memory of free woman and poet Anna Wickham

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Issue 1

a 27 page sample of the full 70 page annual

to be published in Spring and launched at 5:30 am 2nd

May

on the first day of the Swindon Festival of Literature 2011.

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Domestic cherry is the name that many gardeners give to the Prunus avium, also known as Sweet

cherry tree. In a recent study, sweet cherries were characterized by two dominant phenolic

compounds, caffeoyltartaric acid and 3!"™-p-coumaroylquinic acid, which are recognised to have

anti-carcinogenic properties. This is pure poetry and a reason for me to become involved with The

Domestic Cherry magazine. Like the Prunus avium, the publication is promising to be full of lively

wise sap, grow vigorously, claim its own space, and produce fruit of intense complex flavour. It may

be the case that before you get to the fruit the birds would have had it. But even in that case, you will

have to admit, it is hardly wasted.

Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton

Paper cut out cherry tree

Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton

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Domestic Cherry

c/o Mrs. Watson

Lower Shaw Farm

Old Shaw Lane, Shaw

Swindon, Wiltshire

SN5 5PJ

Contact by email: [email protected]

Copyright remains with the individual authors and artists in this edition 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4467-2746-1

Supported by:

Mabel Watson is the alter ego of Hilda Sheehan

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Contents

10 About Domestic Cherry and submission guidelines

Image

Jill Carter

11 The Watson Sisters in Camper Van

Poetry

Mabel Watson

12 Domestic Cherry

Image: Page 13 Paper cut out ‘Cherry Tree in Summer’ Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton

Poetry

Anna Wickham

14 Meditation at Kew

Myra Schneider 15 Forest

Lesley Saunders

16 Harvest Supper

Cristina Navazo-Eguia Newton

17 Literal Translation

Tatjana Debelja!ki

18 Japan u Aprilu/Japan in April

Hilda Sheehan

19 Beautiful is told a thing or two

Claire Dyer

20 Burning the war

Heather O’Neill

21 A Housewife’s Meditation

Blog

Jill Carter

22 We all want to be someone different

Image: Page 23, Drawing 1, ‘Dreams & Wishes’ Jill Carter

Playlet

Mabel Watson

24 The Rise of Domestic Cherry

26 Letters

27 List of contributors

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About Domestic Cherry

Domestic Cherry is a new annual book that will be published each May as part of

the Swindon Festival of Literature and welcomes submissions of previously

unpublished poetry, flash fiction and playlets by women writers. Also, black and

white ink/crayon/charcoal drawings with a touch of red to celebrate cherriness.

The editor Mrs. Watson enjoys being astonished and marvels at women who can

be creative while scrambling over their kids or gasping from the bottom of a

washing basket! She also marvels at women who write with vibrancy, energy and

originality. Mrs. Watson also believes that more fun needs to be had in the

publishing business, so feel free to be playful, happy, edgy, experimental as well

as dark and thick as treacle (Mrs. Watson loves treacle).

What else needs to be said? Mrs. Watson needs your wisdom, because at times

she doubts her own, like lots of women numbed by too much to do. If you have

anything inspirational to add to her submission guidelines then please do share.

Mrs. Watson likes to celebrate sharing!

Submission Details

Please send to [email protected]:

Poetry - of any length sent in the body of an email

Flash Fiction - up to 1000 words sent in the body of an email

Playlets - one side of A4 in one act sent in the body of an email

Black and white line drawings - sent as good quality scanned in Jpeg attachments.

The deadline for issue 1, 70 pages of online and hardcopy writing by women, will

be March 31st 2011, launched at the Swindon Festival of Literature, May 2011.

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Domestic Cherry is an annual inspired by ‘The Travelling Museum of Possibilities’

Jill Carter, September 2010

The Watson Sisters in Camper Van, Jill Carter, 2010

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Domestic Cherry

how vertical the cherry ever

domestic and ripe

rises for picker

bursts for picker

hangs up high and different

frequently cherry frequently picker

cherry movement domestic and easy

iron on red placed with cherry

part picker part boom!

on bite of cherry

most vertical for place

let me hang in the ordinary world

dullness swallow a red

swallow a sweet you

hate the syntax of my fall

cart safely the cherry

in his type of diesel

to carry a cherry careful and quiet while

lipstick bleeds all cherries home by nightfall

so sit in their bowls or bottled

these types thissle these

types sonic either

control our cherry inside

sounds so woman sonic

so domestic stuff unwanted landscape

distant cherry in the wind

this cherry scenario is only

one type domestic cherry’s out the box

Mabel Watson

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Paper cut out cherry tree in summer

Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton

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Meditation at Kew

Alas! for all the pretty women who marry dull men,

Go into the suburbs and never come out again,

Who lose their pretty faces and dim their pretty eyes,

Because no one has skill or courage to organise.

What do these pretty women suffer when they marry?

They bear a boy who is like Uncle Harry,

A girl who is like Aunt Eliza, and not new,

These old dull races must breed true.

I would enclose a common in the sun,

And let the young wives out to laugh and run;

I would steal their dull clothes and go away,

And leave the pretty naked things to play.

Then I would make a contract with hard Fate

That they see all the gay men in the world and choose a

mate,

And I would summon all the pipers in the town

That they dance with Love at a feast, and dance him

down.

From the gay unions of choice

We’d have a race of splendid beauty and of thrilling

voice.

The world whips frank, gay love with rods,

But frankly, gaily shall we get the gods.

Anna Wickham 1884 - 1947

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Forest

The held-out arms of oaks promise quietness

but I can hear lorries rattling their bones,

kids shrieking at the bottom of a garden

too near this wood. I walk fast and at last

silence is let loose. Its leafiness cleans

my lungs and I trudge soft red layers

unthinking of decay until the trees close ranks

and I peer through firs whose low branches

are mean wires into a darkness thick as serge.

Ambivalence creeps in – no birds sing here,

no flowers bloom in the straggles of grass

between the bramble loops lying in wait

and the silence is so dense now it’s a burden.

Among the witchy trees I glimpse eyes

glittering with threat – deer, wild cat, devil?

The truth is this forest of fears can never

be undone and although I don’t trust the path

I start to run, straining to hear human sounds,

run until breath scrapes against my throat

and my alarmed heart drums in my ears,

run until I see a solid man sitting on a log

eating sandwiches. ‘Lovely day for it,’ he says.

‘Lovely,’ I echo, and not far away I hear

car swish lovely as a rushing stream, as music.

Myra Schneider

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Harvest Supper

Moments before the first knock at the door

and the moon looking in through the window,

I’ve forgotten who was invited.

Apples ripen and soften in candlelight, their seeds

swelling a little and a little in their star chambers.

The garden is asking to be let in,

wants to know if I’ve laid the table with the old silver.

Six chairs are standing round with their arms open.

I turn up the flame and wait.

Lesley Saunders

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Literal Translation

Never had the.

My ungoing blistered in the burn of yet.

What-some had often this close

and the closer was the more other than,

the more not really the, the more not quite.

Each time expected having just

that if, then the. But.

Yes, some, like.

Yes, at times, a while, a certain or.

Still, how season, and inasmuch again,

less mean, less waterfall, less.

Bees, without.

Also might a variation of

another not-have.

Unrepairedness, unrepairingness,

wholefailtility,

brokenhood.

Not whether, not whether, but how.

Who does, if at all,

if any ever.

Is it truly thus?

Thus really so like?

Is this it?

Should then no more for?

But why then still out to,

up to.

Where, when, if.

Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton

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Japan u Aprilu

Istinski silna, neoprezna ponekad,

!udim nema i daleka!

Obna"ena, ispunjena savr#enstvom,

Poha$am u"ivanja!!!

Gde ima poverenja ima i radosti.

Nikad nije slikao moju strast,

Snove od boje do re%i,

Bez neizvesnosti i jeze.

Trenutak svetlosti me pogo$a.

Utiskuje japanski zrak na lice.

April lagano izliva boje,

Nad udvojenim senama #to ple#u.

Japan in April

Truly stunning, sometimes careless,

I crave silently and far away!

Naked, filled up with perfection,

I am attending enjoyment!!!

Where there is trust there is always glee.

He never painted my passion,

Dreams from the color to the word,

Without suspense and shivers.

The moment of light strikes me.

Pressing Japanese air onto my face

April is slowly spilling its colors,

above duplicate shadows dancing away.

Tatjana Debelja%ki

Written in Serbian and translated into English by Tatjana Debelja#ki

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beautiful is told a thing or two

1.

beautiful I’ll wait for you until the clock strikes beautiful at midnight and one

2.

beautiful all we want is jewel lipped laughter glossed away why wasn't your

father told

3.

beautiful I want to lay beside you take my small tongs curl your hair to swans

4.

beautiful something tells me the gate was locked behind you forever

lights left singing

5.

beautiful I'll buy your children things of gold shops dug up treasure

why not take them

6.

beautiful we must make a cloud burst make a river make a whole mountain

climb up between

7.

beautiful I will alter you up like a god like sweet things gifted dressed

to stop the world beautiful

8.

beautiful Pete told you I told you each day will always be a beautiful place to

picnic in your perfume

9.

beautiful I will hang you up above a shelf of things that describe your face

my wall loves you too

10.

beautiful if you go down the shops the ugly might buy you with biscuits

a paper and a coffee

Hilda Sheehan

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Burning the war for Dad

I am eight. It is November. There are

three feet of safety between me

and the flames and the air is brittle

with heat. We’re at the end of the garden

under a rib of trees, and he’s wearing

trousers the colour of fudge, a wax jacket

which tinsels when he walks. We’re burning

the war, his father’s death, the man

he used to be. My face is hot, frost stabs

the back of my knees, leaves curl,

twigs snap; there is percussion here, and

melody. This is when he can see through walls,

and skin and bone, can hold a star

in the palm of his hand, knows

everything there is to know. He smiles,

adds wood. The smoke thickens, rises, hides him.

Claire Dyer

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A Housewife’s Meditation

His pants, my knickers, paired, pegged

hang damp, unripe. Sadsacks

along the line. The prayer spreads

away away – fill with air, folded hearts!

‘Come back’ caught in my juju cloth:

his pants, my knickers. Paired, pegged

each bead adds weight to the last

I sow certitude, to harvest

along the line. The prayer spreads

dancing. Frankenstein, fluffed live

awake and pulling shapes, swell-full

his pants, my knickers, paired, pegged

magnet realign our filaments:

our wills. Cause moving, mirroring.

Along the line the prayer spreads

out my mind to ride your voice

together a storm of murmuring noise:

his pants, my knickers, paired, pegged

along the line the prayer spreads.

Heather O’Neill

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We all want to be something different

13/Jan/11 09:11

Talked to Ali today, mum of the friend of the mysterious girl. She was delighted

to know that portrait images of the community were to be in an exhibition at the

Royal West of England Academy. I told her I was hugely excited and that the

first person I shared the news with of the exhibition Dreams, Masks & Mirrors

was Lennie, my window cleaner. I’m coming, he said, I’ve never been anywhere

royal. Whilst there was something burning under the grill, we discussed on the

phone the desire to be 'Other'...Well, we all want to be someone different - don't

we said the Mum of the best friend of the mysterious little girl, who had appeared

as though from nowhere, dressed in a different outfit over ten times. I explained

the photographs taken during the ten day art/works festival was to explore the

theme of a contemporary take on fairytale & myth. Isobel loved the Travelling

Museum of Possibilities, she still talks about it...told her Nan on Christmas Day

all about what took place, dressing up, in the media bus. She wore her Travelling

Museum badge on her Christmas dress. ‘I dream of being on the Front Row,

she’d said.

Jill Carter

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Drawing 1, Dreams & Wishes

Jill Carter

www.jillcarterartworks.com

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The Rise of Domestic Cherry – a Playlet

Monday evening, Mabel is loading the twin tub and the phone rings. It is

Geraldine.

Mabel: Mrs.Watson speaking.

Geraldine: Mabel!

Mabel: Yes, speaking.

Geraldine: Mabel, I've just been reading that magazine you talked about at last

week’s knitting group. You said you didn't think much of it and, having read it, I

agree.

Mabel: Well yes, it's all a bit dull. I had to keep putting it down, clean another

window then struggle through another poem. Not a good sign.

Geraldine: I'm much less impressed than I was with issue 35 (the first one I've

subscribed to). What struck me this time is just how many of the poems are by

men - so I counted, and then counted in issue 36, which is also unbalanced but it's

not quite so obvious.

Mabel: That's terrible. Poor Ursula has been rejected by them no less than seven

times and she's a master of haiku!

Geraldine: I've also just subscribed to Brittle Star - which has poetry and short

fiction, which also has a male/female ratio of 11:7. Can't draw conclusions from

one issue, of course.

Mabel: No, quick conclusions are never good.

Geraldine: Do you think this is common in small poetry mags? There are, now,

short story mags that are only open to women, in an effort to combat undercurrent

sexism in fiction. Is it just as bad in poetry - or is there a women-only poetry

mag somewhere?

Mabel: What’s needed is a totally fabulous magazine full of brilliant work by

women. An annual perhaps, nicely retro.

Geraldine: Yes! it makes life even more difficult if we are disadvantaged by our

gender before we even pick up a pen! (Or maybe this is just a gap in the market?)

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Mabel: Gap in market. Certainly, there's a lack of fun as well as a lack of writing

by amazing women. But how about Myslexia. That's a lovely one.

Geraldine: I've subscribed to MsLexia for a couple of years now, and think it's

wonderful - but it's a drop in the ocean compared with the need, and the standard

is so high that's it feels almost impossible to get published there (although I sent

them 4 poems on the Departures theme in the summer and they haven't come

back yet, so maybe they are shortlisted, and I did have a story shortlisted once!)

Mabel: Hmmm. You know it brings me back to a comment made by the totally

lovely poet Ros Barber. She said, 'Mabel, your poems are full of strength and

originality but male editors may dislike the domestic theme.'

Geraldine: Goodness Mabel. Something needs to be done! A poetry magazine

for women - along the lines of The Yellow Room, which is short stories written

by women, would be wonderful. We can dream!

Mabel: Let's do more than dream. Let's do it! Let’s have our own magazine, call

it 'the domestic cherry' or something like that. A vibrant source of writing by

women of any age, any culture, any background.

Geraldine: It's a great idea. Not sure I know enough about poetry? Can I really

edit short fiction when I've had so little published myself? All the usual doubts

you'd expect from any woman brought up in the 50s in a household full of men.

Mabel: Darling, we can do it. We know what's what; my bedside is a mountain

of poems. I know what moves me and that's a great place to start. Away with the

‘Kingdom of Dullness!’ A magazine to cause a gasp in the poetry world.

Geraldine: Are you serious Mabel?

Mabel: I'm VERY serious Geraldine Watson. Sisters in domestic dirty washing

poetry crime: bring your dirty washing here, Objectivists at large! We want

sincerity and freshness more than anything; a feather duster on the art world!

Now must get back to the spinner…

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Letters

Dear Mrs. Watson

May I call you Mabel?

Indeed, you are right. In fact, it goes without saying: the female writing voice is

a great one, as great as any, provided the person behind it takes writing seriously,

knows how to be free and disciplined at the same time, and also knows how to

laugh.

For these, and many more reasons, I certainly do ‘enjoy, encourage, and

celebrate’ such voices in the Literature-related events that I seek to put on.

As to your new magazine, I think it an idea whose time has come, whose cherry

is ripe, and promises fruitfulness to follow.

Since you say you like sharing Mrs. W and welcome comments, I would be very

pleased to go through the DOMESTIC CHERRY (brilliant name!) submission

guidelines with you but best by phone, because just now, on this cold wet night at

Lower Shaw Farm, I am off to put another log on the fire and run a reading

group. (Maybe your mag could also have a ‘Recommended Reading’ section,

because I believe that you believe that a belief in reading is a necessary belief for

writers who believe that, through a belief in the value of reading the work of

other good writers, their own writing can improve, to unbelievable levels of

beauty, sense, and completeness.)

Must go. My children may be grown up but my books are still babies that need a

gentle hand and careful preparation before they can be presented to the doubting

world.

All power to your elbow dear Mabel.

Matt Holland

Director, SWINDON FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE

Lower Shaw Farm

Shaw

Swindon

Wiltshire SN5 5PJ

01793 771080 or 07940 827624

[email protected]

www.swindonfestivalofliterature.co.uk

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List of contributors

Myra Schneider’s tenth collection of poetry, ‘Circling The Core’, was published by Enitharmon in

2008. She also writes fiction for children and personal writing. These include ‘Writing My Way

Through Cancer ‘(Jessica Kingsley 2003). Most recently ‘Writing Your Self’ (with John Killick)

published by Continuum International at the end of 2009. s www.esch.dircon.co.uk

Lesley Saunders’ poems have been widely published, including in the London Review of Books,

Magma and the Rialto. Her books include a co-authored volume with Jane Draycott and artist Peter

Hay, ‘Christina the Astonishing’ (Two Rivers Press, 1998); ‘Her Leafy Eye,’ collaboration with the

artist Geoff Carr (Two Rivers Press, 2009); ‘No Doves’ (Mulfran Press 2010); and most recently

‘Some Languages Are Hard to Dream In’, a pamphlet with images by Christopher Hedley-Dent

(Mulfran Press 2010).

Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton published poetry in Spanish in two collections and five anthologies

before moving to Swindon, where she is involved in education, wildlife projects, flamenco singing

and raising her children. Some of her English poems have appeared in journals and become finalists at

Bridport, Gregory O’Donoghue, Strokestown and Aesthetica.

Hilda Sheehan lives in Swindon with her five children and has had poems published by Rialto,

Poetry Society Website, BBC Website, South and The New Writer. Hilda is the MC of the popular

BlueGate Poets’ Open Mic Nights, an assistant to the Swindon Artswords Literature Development

Worker and chair of BlueGate Poets: www.blueghatepoets.com

Tatjana Debelja!ki was born in 1967 in U"ice and is a member of the Association of Writers of

Serbia UKS since 2004 and the Haiku Society of Serbia. She has published three collections of poetry,

‘A House Made of Glass,’ published by ART – U"ice; ‘Yours,’ published by Nrodna Knjigna, and

‘Vulcano’ by Haiku Lotos, Valjevo. "AH-EH-EEH-OH-OOH" published by Poeta Belgrade in 2008.

www.poetabg.com

Claire Dyer writes women’s fiction and poetry and works very part-time for an HR research forum in

London. She is widely published and is a member of the Brickwork Poets, a group who perform

conversations in poetry on set themes at venues around the UK.

Heather O’Neill was one of last year’s winners of the Battered Moons Competition. She has worked,

among other things, as a secondary school teacher and a 70’s disco wedding singer. Currently she is

raising two small boys and has only been writing a short time.

Jill Carter, MFA is a visual artist, facilitator & educator: delivering social engagement projects,

performative interventions, workshops & photographic exhibitions. Jill engages with people through

light-hearted playfulness and sensitivity, bridging artistic, social & therapeutic values. Inspiring others

to share stories & hopes, exploring the space between the real and imaginary, playful and poetic.

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