
This month’s featured writer is Clare Roberts, whose passions include wild water, music and mountains. Formerly a journalist, Clare now studies poetry, alongside her work teaching piano and singing. The two poems featured on the Ciren Scene website have just been published in ‘Voices,’ a brand-new anthology of writing by the students and alumni of the University of Gloucestershire.
Clare says: ‘To hear different voices, we must listen. As a keen singer, the theme of the anthology conjures the idea of different melodies creating harmony. There will sometimes be dissonance, but that can make the waiting more poignant, and the resolution sweeter.’
Clare also writes radio programmes for Corinium Radio under the banner of Somewhere Else Writers, exploring themes including Inner and Outer Space, and Playfulness, using literature and music.
‘Voices’ is available in Waterstones at the Cheltenham Literature Festival or through the university bookshop. To find more work by local writers go to somewhere-else-writers.org.
Poems in Voices by Clare Roberts
Tar Barrels of Allendale
Half a life of heaving the heat,

fifty years flaming, forceful
in the memories of men dressed as monks,
jesters and knights for the new year’s knees-up.
Born and bred to the task of bearing
barrels of burning hot tar, boughs
and paraffin; a procession picks its path,
a crowd of cheering, costumed characters.
Forty-five men (no female’s feat)
balance fire that flickers, and flips
torchlight to shadow, tinder alight teases,
floating on smoke, flitting out fear.
Glow ignites gleams, glistens the threads
on green-tassled gowns beneath galloping dazzle,
spirits of saffron spark fires on brass,
band beating time berating night’s blackness.
Lamps lean lighting the Yuletide
the Kingshead hails a heaven or hell,
revellers reel drunk with reality,
smelting the senses for old time’s sake.
Stone walls shy away from the sky
retiring rabbits too frightened to run.
shadows leap sideways then crouch and sulk
as the midnight bonfire bursts the blackness.
Smoke rises slow over sooty eyes
spirits gambol groups gather,
surge the bonfire ceremony, celebration
grab the gauntlet in the guise of new year.
Sear away sadness, usher the senses
to embrace new existence, an exuberant eve,
festival of fire first footing the gladness
igniting the North lying numb in the frost.
a mother
In the spaces between
shopping lists and school runs
I pace my days.
Centre stage to succour and support
I learnt my lines, forgetting
to listen to the silences
the gaps subsumed –
plans, ideas, lists
and unformed thoughts.
I dream sounds
understood in retrospect
like clouds unseen in a luminous sky.
Unwritten words, a blank notebook
buried by the everyday
delights of living.
Children grow
spaces bleed.
I live in peripheries now
I live in peripheries now.
Children grow,
spaces bleed.
Delights of living
buried by the everyday
unwritten words, a blank notebook.
Like clouds unseen in a luminous sky
understood in retrospect
I dream sounds
and unformed thoughts
plans, ideas, lists,
the gaps subsumed
to listen to the silences.
I learnt my lines, forgetting
I was centre stage to succour and support.
I pace my days,
shopping lists and school runs
in the spaces between
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