The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

This weeks Friday Poem

Clare Best’s poem is part memorial, part lament for Sarah Everard, and for all the other women attacked while walking alone. Best walks us beyond the safety of home through trees which become the women themselves — all colours, all ages, all sizes, some “with fruit”, scarred and stripped. The spacing between words gives a sense of fragmentation, and the repetition of ‘with us’, ‘out here’, and ‘we are walking’ creates a feeling of relentlessness and inevitability. It’s a long journey home.

  • beyond the gate

    in memory of Sarah Everard
    and all the others

    scots pine and resin-scented air
    out here
    giant oak     left of the path
    we are walking

    sycamore     in sun     in shade
    holly crowding ragged elder

    sweet chestnut     spruce fir    douglas fir
    with us
    field maple     half-uprooted beech
    out here     walking

    sorbus domestica     the service tree
    and elm     rare elm

    blackthorn     black with sloes
    with us     out here
    hawthorn     hazel     leaning ash
    and we are walking

    ivy     juniper     cherry     poplar
    copper beech and twisted willow

    so many hornbeam     so many birch
    out here
    stripped leafless by fine sleet
    as we are     walking

    ranks of cypress     sapling larch
    branches creaking high above

    wild plum and wild pear
    we are     we are
    scarred     black-leafed     still with fruit
    walking     walking

    by Clare Best

    Clare Best is the author of a prose memoir The Missing List (Linen Press, 2018) and six volumes of poetry, the most recent of which is Each Other (Waterloo, 2019). A new pamphlet, End of Season, is published with Coast to Coast to Coast in 2021. Clare has often worked with visual artists and is currently a Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she is collaborating on operas and other vocal projects. She lives on the edge of Tunstall Forest, near the Suffolk coast. Clare Best’s website is here

colourful book cover of Rendang by Will Harris

New in The Frip

Mat Riches reviews RENDANG by Will Harris, winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2020, Helen Ivory writes on belonging, identity and the poetic voice and wonders whether hers has a Luton accent, Richie McCaffery reviews The Coming-Down Time by Robert Selby and Hilary Menos reviews How To Wash A Heart by Bhanu Kapil, winner of the TS Eliot prize 2020

Joelle Taylor wearing a houndstooth check suit and a tie

also in the Frip this month Bruno Cooke profiles Spoken Word poet and activist Joelle Taylor and discusses activism, education and the power of poetry, Emma Simon reviews Little Piece of Harm by Chris Jones and The Friday Poem talks to Helena Nelson about the future of poetry publishing, the cult of personality and where to find good poetry today

Recent Friday Poems

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by Matthew Stewart — The storks’ nest teeters on floodlight pylons, / bushy hair over thirty-two white eyes / that shine against the darkening skyline. // Just seconds left, the home team’s pressing hard / for a winner

Continue readingLas Cigüeñas

Book

by Meg Peacocke —The Book of the unknown foetus. / The Book of cats in bags, pigs in pokes, / Moses in baskets with all the eggs. / The Book of errors, terrors, accidents (happy), / accidents (unhappy, Vol. II).

Continue readingBook

Last week’s poem

So this would have been the Friday Poem on May the 28th but as you may know we launched on the 4th of June. ergo no poem for the 28th. We could have cheated, but that’s just not cricket. Anyway, we’re live now so submit a poem quick.

Continue readingLast week’s poem