poetry snapshots: anne stewart

Winter Loving



“Let us have winter loving that the heart

May be in peace and ready to partake

Of the slow pleasure spring would wish to hurry

… ” Elizabeth Jennings Winter Love





She lies awake listening to the storm.

It breaks in through open transom lights;

runs riot through the house, a vandal gouging

pristine walls. Bringing the outside in.



She hears the garden’s talk, thin as thorns

scratching glass, alpines clinging for dear life,

plastic chairs sitting themselves down hard.

And you lie close. Boats in safe harbour.



She tries to listen better, strains to hear

the scrape of firs digging in their heels

against the gale, but you snore too loudly,

content with life just lapping at your sides.



Thugs of rain shout and batter at the window

as though they’d come to sort you out. Listen!

Listen to the whale-song of the trees as they

wallow in it. See how they shake their fists.



Anne Stewart

shortlisted in the Frogmore Poetry Competition, 2007 and published in The Frogmore Papers, No. 70, Autumn 2007;


published in Flarestack Poetry anthology, Mr Barton Isn’t Paying, 2009;

included in collection, The Janus Hour, Oversteps Books, 2010 (http://www.overstepsbooks.com/, ISBN 978-1-906856-16-8)


Founder of the poet-showcase site, www.poetrypf.co.uk, Anne Stewart is administrator for Second Light Network and co-edited several issues of ARTEMISpoetry. She was awarded MA(Dist) in Creative Writing from Sheffield Hallam University in 2003 and won the Bridport Prize in 2008. The Janus Hour (Oversteps Books, 2010) is her first collection.

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