SOUTH 56

SOUTH 56 was published in September 2017.

Jean Watkins is the featured poet in SOUTH 56. Gill Learner has written a profile and made a selection of Jean's poems.

A taster poem appears below.

GHOSTLY

On winter evenings when the dark wraps round
we switch on lights and pull the curtains tight.
We’re safe here with the boiler’s soothing sound,
forget the world outside where creatures fight
for life, for food and space to rear their young.
Out there the slinking fox scents every clue –
a pheasant’s passage, trace of muntjac dung
between moon-silvered graves and brooding yew.
And from this world I hear a ghostly cry
in folklore said to prophesy a death –
the tawny owl which silently and high
glides through the frosted trees and with each breath
sends out that wavering call to find his mate
and scans the ground where voles must chance their fate.

© Jean Watkins

Poets featured in the current issue of South Poetry Magazine

Reviews featured in the current issue of South Poetry Magazine

Poems by selectors for the current issue of South Poetry Magazine