WHERE I COME FROM

Where I 
come from

I come from
a pebble-dashed semi
bells over rooftops
dens in the garden
thick post-war stews
hopscotch on pavements
the milkman’s old horse
slugs in school cabbage

I come from
a white flat-roofed villa
an orchard of lemons
games played barefooted
warm sea and gnat-bites
Maltese hot cheesecakes
fiestas and fireworks
saints in the streets

I come from
a Georgian mansion
piglets for neighbours
hogs in a field
clashing cans in the night
ragged robins and cow-parsley
a haunted old house
dens in high corn

I come from
a tall flint-faced house
a graveyard of neighbours
a socialist
a liberal
in uneasy union
and two sisters
in a houseful of cats

I come from there
and from nowhere

We spent the day at Jane Austen's House Museum today, at a one-day poetry workshop led by Maura Dooley. It was a brilliant experience and we all wrote a great deal. The theme was "Writing for Occasions" but it was definitely not designed for producing Patience-Strong-inspired birthday-card or Christmas-card ditties (as I had feared!). Maura, herself an excellent poet, brought our best personal work out of us with a variety of stimulating exercises. Here's one of the poems I wrote today - edited but probably not finished. It's a poem I wouldn't have written if I hadn't been at the workshop - that's a recommendation in itself, as far as I'm concerned.

We're going back in December for Maura's next workshop in her role as Poet in Residence at the Jane Austen Museum, and so are most of the others who were there today. We can't wait!