POET
Rowena has been writing poetry seriously since 1997. She writes in both English and Scots.
She has won the premier prize for Scots poetry, the McCash.
She has had many poems published in a variety of places, such as: The Herald, The Scots Magazine, Poetry Scotland, New Writing Scotland, Scottish Islands Explorer, Reach Poetry Magazine, Scottish Memories, iota, PsychoPoetica, Countryside Tales, Quantum Leap, The Friendship Book, Lallans and The Wild East (Hong Kong).
Her poems have also been broadcast on the radio by the BBC.
You'll find some sample poems on the page below.
Rowena has one individual collection, entitled The Chameleon of Happiness and one individual pamphlet of Scots poetry called Comin Oot in the Wash. Contact her directly to purchase them.
LATE SNOWFALL
Steep, steep into the valley
we descend,
to where a charred skeleton of cottage cowers,
fleshed now with snow.
Then climbing again,
echoes of our breaths
piling in drifts against the hill
as we trudge along with wind-slitted eyes.
Muddy ghosts haunt the path,
their bootprints the limit of our vision
yet larks flake from April sky
or swirl on high
in a blizzard of song.
Snowstorm passes like memory:
rainbows melt in every tussock,
dribbling colour like cries of moorland birds
over an ever-widening horizon.
Published in The Fireside
Book 2018 (D C Thomson)
DUFTON PIKE PICNIC
Dufton Pike wasn't a big hill:
but mirth slowed us down -
it's hard to laugh and still climb.
We got to the cairn in perfect time for lunch.
Flat rock, sun-warmed, and we were set.
You dug in the khaki knapsack,
surely a casualty of at least one World War,
and came up with the goods. Dry goods.
You didn't do posh picnics.
Sandwiches are for sissies, you said.
Your idea of lunch just a trip to the butcher, the baker
(plenty of candlepower in the sun already).
No butter, no spread, mayonnaise a word
you'd struggle to spell, if you knew it at all.
You slapped the roll into my hand. Slapped the meat
into the roll. While I slapped a smile onto my face.
Or tried. What I wouldn't have given
for something just a little more moist.
Be careful what you ask for: your old refrain.
Moments later, clouds were mopping up sunshine
like bread with gravy, letting it ooze out as rain.
You took back the roll, held it high: sacrifice
to a rain god. Then, kidding on you were a waiter,
in a uniform as black as the sky,
and a phoney French accent,
you presented it to me with a flourish.
Marinated in laughter,
what should have been a soggy mess
became a banquet worthy of kings.
Since then, when it comes to picnics,
while most people are praying hard
for cloudless skies, I can?t help wishing
for a little rain.
Published in New Writing
ISBN 978-0-948877-87-2
Before the Scotland Match
City streets are pleated with supporters,
fold upon fold of kilt in every colour.
They explode from bus and train like party poppers,
streamers trailing from taxi stances
or knotted outside pubs.
They're accessorised with tammies and toories,
Glengarries tickle grins with their homemade hackles
of foot-long pheasant feathers
while some go bare-headed:
everything from billiard-ball cool
to Hairy Mary how's yer Ma?
Scarves flutter, but there's not a coat in sight,
despite the autumn chill:
they have their enthusiasm to keep them warm.
A wee boy holds Daddy's hand,
huge in his excitement;
girlfriends add a fashionable twist
to kilt and Caterpillars -
still a statement of absolute support,
but softer, prettier. Pink.
A hard man carries a soft toy:
gibbon in a
Crusaders caped with flags, blue or golden hue,
cavort and dance, sure they know the truth
of today's result already, with their preview vision.
The passers-by smile. Wish they could go, too.
Published in Poetry Scotland Issue 53
Presents and Absence
Presents breed beneath an artificial tree;
size and quantity valued more than thought
or time.
No time left - for you're no longer here.
No instant fix of comfort and joy
for me this year -
just cold turkey
followed by mince pies and sighs.
While white berries glisten their tears
for the missed kisses of mistletoe,
the family's conscience pricks and jags
in an abundance of holly.
Their dutiful deeds smother me
with an ivy stranglehold.
I'm encircled by wreaths
dark as depression,
except for red-berried guilt
glowing like coals of Hell
among the glossy green leaves.
Conversation is carefully wrapped
in glib messages of goodwill:
tissue thin and easily torn,
only the Sellotape® of good intentions
holds it together.
I'm so cold.
Alone,
yet constantly surrounded;
a footprint in slowly melting snow.
Originally published in PsychoPoetica (Unversity of Hull) then in The Chameleon of Happiness
White Spirit Winter
Dark clouds stencil images
on a winter sky’s pale emulsion.
Rain glosses dead branches;
pushes back the protective sheet of snow,
revealing a residue of rotting
paint flake leaves.
Stripper has been brushed
over the grey primer of tree trunks
until they bubble with lichen.
Nature dabbles with special effects:
the distressed wood of peeling bark;
mock verdigris on North-facing boughs;
rag-rolled streams.
Waterfalls of white spirit
clean winter’s palette,
so all is in readiness
for a fresh coat
of leaves.
Published in The Fireside Book 2001 (D C Thomson)
Giverny
“Hormis la peinture et le jardinage,
je ne suis bon à rien.”[1]
A mirrored bridge
echoes painter reflected in gardener,
arabesque so exact
that up could be down, down up,
air, colour, light more real
than mere planks of wood.
Irises the deep purple of pleasure
unfurl at the edge,
tinting the day with midnight.
Painting them stained his fingers
just as earth daubed his hands
from their planting.
He serves us blossom on waterlily trays.
They blush at the coquetry
whispered by wind through willows
whose pashmina folds swirl
in an exuberance of green,
tasselled edges teasing water
where pine shimmers to lime:
shadows in a pool
playing kiss and tell
with nymphs
as the bowed lips of the bridge
and its reflection
gasp at a dragonfly’s iridescence.
Published in Reach Poetry Monthly