“One thing Poetry Wales can give is poems, and what we can all, at the moment, let in safely – through this screen here and into our hearts – are words.” Poetry Wales launches its Stay-at-Home special issue today, freely available to download and read worldwide. Enjoy your free download by clicking the image or the link below.
Editorial
Welcome to the Poetry Wales Stay-at-Home Special. Come on in. It’s a house filled with dancing and childhood, with vegetables and stories, with pottery and words. Look! A tree is growing, right there, up through the carpet in the living room, and from up near the ceiling, a gorgeous bird is swooping. Look up now at its vibrant, open wings. Out in the garden, some dude’s playing golf, having improvised a sand wedge by whittling an old broom, his clubs high and dry, marooned at the office. And here, by the mantelpiece, a robot is chillaxing in a smoking jacket, puffing on a Cuban. Cinderella’s round here somewhere, doing the housework and, upstairs, Rapunzel is opening the curtains, leaning out of a window, to let her luscious locks down into this terraced street.
This house is rocking, and whose is it? All yours guv, if you want it, for no charge at all. You don’t even have to get up from where you’re sitting, looking at this screen, this one here now, where my words are. Hi! How’s it going? All you need do is go down through these pages, down through these poems made by these humans out of all their love and care, and then this house is your house. Look! A fairytale character steps now from an alcove. Out in the garden, a child skims a stone – splish splosh splash – across a lake that wasn’t there until a second ago. Some guy’s making a dancefloor of the kitchen, cutting some shapes, whirling himself into sparkling arrangements, coining new names for dance moves with his body.
Let’s be clear. Here in the world now, we’re all stuck inside, and we can’t see our friends, and it sucks: it’s lonesome and stressy, and some days unbearable. So while we are stuck here, let us, in the words of the great Shakin Stevens, make this ole house rock. One thing Poetry Wales can give is poems, and what we can all, at the moment, let in safely – through this screen here and into our hearts – are words. We hope beyond hope that this Stay-at-Home Special makes things a teensy-tiny bit better, on the path to getting through this, to righting the world. Folks can do anything. Just look out there at that guy now, swinging a broom through the garden. He just whacked the arse out of that screwed-up newspaper he’s fashioned into a Titleist. He just hit a hole in one.
Jonathan Edwards
So it’s time for me to add a quick note as Chair of the Poetry Wales Committee. This Stay-at-Home Special is from us to you. For the price of not a penny from your pocket. It’s a thank-you-for-reading-the-magazine special. It’s a hello-how-are-you-in-the-midst-of-this-lockdown special. It’s a we-love-you-so-here-are-some-more-poems special. But perhaps most important of all, we hope it’s a space for you to stop for a moment, to breathe, and to let words flood your mind. Come on in and sit down. Let the poems take shape all around you.