Poetry and Writing

Loving Weardale - Jo Colley

Stanhope pool

daylight flipped belly up

the birds flit past fleet

cut out shapes leaves

drift spin make surface

float no echo of walls

body in deep the head

lets go the silt settles

empty clean just

air on skin sky

The final community session of the Map Panels project was a poetry and bookmaking workshop with writer and poet Jo Colley, who worked alongside the textile participants in Stanhope Community Centre.

Air

Soundless, solitary as a lost balloon

I drift up and away to where,

the light barely breaking,

mist and cloud meet and kiss

cast a jewelled veil

above a soaked carpet

of green and gold.

Melancholy Thistle

Despite the name 'thistle', unlike many thistles, this plant has no sharp spines. With attractive single flowers, it produces seeds that are sought after by some birds, particularly finches. The name 'Melancholy thistle' comes from the potion which was once made from this plant to cure melancholia, now commonly known as depression.

Mauve is the colour of a bruise

a fingerprint left on a woman’s wrist

held too hard

The Melancholy Thistle appears

in upland meadows in the north

a solitary flower

In the mirror her eye violets

blooms around a red centre

keeps her indoors

Spineless, the flower turned potion

took away sadness for a while

left a purple haze