Nancy Somerville
Two poems: Sheep & Sonnet for Steven | Review
ISBN 978-1-906700-05-8
£6.99 plus 99p postage and packing.
or send a cheque for £7.98 and payable to Red Squirrel Press to
Red Squirrel Press, PO Box 219, Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 9AU,
with your name and address and saying you want a copy of Waiting for Zebras.
Sheep
No free thinkers here.
We go with the flock,
never stick our scrag ends out,
always do what's expected of us.
Who needs freedom
when we've this whole field to ourselves?
There's nothing out there
but wolves and rogue lambs
bleating on
about democracy and free speech,
not to mention vegetarianism.
Well, we don't care what anyone says,
one shepherd's much the same as any other
and they know what's best for us.
What's wrong with woolly thinking?
It keeps us snug and smug.
We know our place.
If we've done nothing wrong
we've nothing to worry about.
Right?
Sonnet for Steven
When word came through that you'd been born
my friends and I had met
to sow seeds for a new dawn
- naive perhaps, and yet
who else has ever changed the world
but dreamers with more hope than sense
destined to be ridiculed
by those who view through cynicism's lens.
Our tiny slice of space and time's unique
- there is no second chance.
We take a leap of faith and seek
solutions, or give in to circumstance.
On your first night, clouds parted to reveal
stars out of reach but none the less quite real.
"On Sunday I caught the end if this year's StAnza poetry festival on a blustery sunny Fife day at St. Andrews. The early start and the wait at Leuchars Junction was rewarded by a fine hour in the company of two expert poets who move comfortably and eloquently between the languages of Scotland. Nancy Somerville's first collection is Waiting for Zebras and she has a keen eye and a dry wit which entertained us all. St. Andrew's was awash with poets, of course - Douglas Dunn and Dilys Rose could be seen sharing a table, and Carol Ann Duffy - perhaps the next Poet Laureate? - was spotted on South Street."
Andrew Martin, National Library of Scotland, Modern Poetry Collections; 24 March 2009