Pictures by Mike Daish.
In recognition of this week’s Urban Wild festival, which runs from May 23rd to 31st, we invited four local writers to share work on the theme. For more information about the festival, which is organised by Southampton National Park City, click here.
This is the City – Anita Foxall
This is the city of water and salt,
protective quay stones,
comfort scented.
This is the city where the Common,
our lungs,
soothes anxious hearts
with green relief.
This is the city of unseen connections,
where we laugh in a dozen languages
understood by all.
This is the city where voices roar at intolerance
so loud and tirelessly
peace will forever be restored.
This is the city where our gender is Earth,
where our nationality is Earth,
where the whole city becomes the entire Earth.
Anita Foxall is a poet and performer based in Southampton. She is a member of Anita and the Hounds, a blend of poetry and music, and is the host of Write a Note poetry open mic at MAST. Her debut poetry collection, Shapes and Forms from Outer Space, explores belonging, memory, and the surreal edges of everyday life.
Inheritance – David Wright
Southampton has a spine of bloom and green
in which we exercise, we find our place.
Its parks, the commons, woods and streams,
our calm, our peace, our free and happy spaces.
What lies beneath our concrete and our tar?
Where are our future woodlands and greenways?
Who advocates for water, land and air?
And who can keep man’s excesses at bay?
Let’s dare to dream our grandchildren will still
ride bikes through Hoglands Park and Riverside,
sail on the Itchen, swim at Woodmill,
walk, have fun, jog, run, swing, climb and slide.
From Millers Pond to Daisy dip, we must
protect, prioritise, reform, adjust.
A Southampton resident for more than 60 years, David Wright has found more time to write in retirement following a 24 year career in IT followed by 22 years running Paint Pots nurseries with his wife. As a poet, David is a regular contributor to and supporter of Southampton’s Write a Note open mic events.
Ode to Salmon – by Christelle Blunden
Tell me your secret, oh salmon
For I know you were born in a place close to my beating heart
If we can share a river, you and I, can I learn too
How you do what you do
Can I brace the sea as the water opens wider and farther
Can I ride the current knowing assuredly where I am going
and how to get there
When they wait for me at the shore
Reverent but fearsome
Can I accept that this breath might be my last
But that a life well lived and gone in an instant is some of our destiny
Shall I turn around when I no longer belong
When my birthplace beckons me shall I heed the call and leap, never holding back, until I sense that mouth closing in again
Drawing me into the tenderness of an ending which spawns a new beginning
Shall I ride every wave with courage and conviction
In spite of all odds
And shall I never doubt myself for long enough to drift away
Tell me your secret, oh salmon
For you will die in a place close to my beating heart
Christelle is chair of Southampton National Park City and a member of Southampton River Rights. She writes occasional poetry, spoken word and song for pleasure.
What’s your ‘PB’? – Katie Isham
And they ran through the city. They ran through the Common, past the avenue of yews guiding generations and guarding those gone, bypassing the weeping beech, speeding down The Avenue eschewing towering canopies on both sides.
They ran under the pines of Lordswood, quicker than the jay screaming to catch their ear, feet thudding over the soft echoey roots of thousands of hazels, alders, spruce, birch and their comrades.
They ran round the sweet chestnut of Mayfield cursing the grenades exploding under foot, running in an impossible attempt to escape the scent of the mahonia, paying no heed to the stoic oaks.
They ran along the bank at Riverside Park, evading the branches reaching out, dismissing the saplings struggling for recognition, blind to the sunset hues of the acers.
They ran without stopping to rescue the conkers outside The Guildhall, overlooking the swirling dance of magnolia buds.
The wisteria bided its time and finally released the racemes, lilac cascading from the sky.
Everyone stopped.
They stopped in thrall, transfixed beneath the tangled heart of the city.
And the wisteria wished they understood the importance of still moments. Every root, leaf, bloom in the city takes time. You can’t outrun growth.
Born and raised in Southampton, Katie Isham is a writer and teacher who focuses on the local community. She writes the Suburban Safari column for In Common as well as various fiction works.
- Reproduced with permission of Southampton National Park City.
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