Death of a swift
I am a clock.
How many chimes
until I am
a swift?
A blackbird?
This is a fine song.
I weave blue ribbons
in my hair to catch
dragonflies.
Their lace wings
shroud my eyes.
A womb gorged
with embryos waits
til the next time
I die.
©2024 Sarah Drury
I was very excited to have been shortlisted for The Bridport Prize in 2022, with this poem! It was inspired by an incident which occurred as I sat in the hospital gynaecology department. An immigrant woman, heavily pregnant, was trying to communicate to the receptionist, but had no English. The receptionist was shouting at the woman as though she were a second class citizen. Talk about dehumanisation!
AN IMMIGRANT DARES TO SING
The bellies are fecund, dumpling-doughed
in their roundness.
The names roll, no one choking.
I clutch my pot, all yellow, all of it.
In walks a womb. A refugee cradles it.
It is full of child but does not exist for
its mother has no tongue to match our ears and
she knows none of our songs.
The receptionist gets loud and slow, and people stare.
This woman has the audacity, they say
to bring her womb to birth babies, steal roofs
from heads and snatch notes from palms.
To sleep with ears not bleeding and folds of flesh
safe in the knowledge they’re her own.
I am ashamed to be English.
To nurture a visible womb.
I am unable to sing Arabic.
©2022 Sarah Drury
I have been venturing into mixed media, and have enjoyed using acrylic paints and inks, decoupage and embellishments such as buttons, beads and jewels to create these latest pieces, which are gifts for friends.
©2024 Sarah Drury
I have been searching for a studio space for the last four years, as I had to work in my living room and as a consequence, my sofa is covered in splatters of acrylic paint!! But now I have the luxury of a 3-metre wall to work on! I can splatter and splot to my heart’s content! The studio space is in a fab place called ‘Fountain Arts’ and is a little community of artists. There are 9 artists or crafters with spaces, and with them being open plan, it is great to chat to others. But when I am alone, I get out my bluetooth speaker, hook it up to my phone, put some happy music on and paint away to my hearts content! (I dance too, but shhhhhh!!)
I painted my first larger acrylic floral before Christmas and wow, what a liberating experience to be let loose with the acrylics and SPACE!!! I abandoned the reference pics and just went with the flow! I let my spirit free and worked intuitively, letting my soul make the creative decisions!
‘Fizzy Poppies’ evolved gradually over the space of a few weeks!
1st stage: I painted a weak wash with watered down acrylics. This provided the base layer for the rest of the work:
2nd Stage: I painted on a white background at first, defining the flowers and vase using negative space. I then added some yellow, and the green base. It looks a little patchy! That green is so intense!!
Stage 3: At this point, I had a total change of direction and was driven to use a palette knife to add red petals, which became poppies! I used a sharp pencil and scribbled all over the painting, gouging into the wet paint. My son joined in! It was great fun!! I could have tidied up the patchy background and this would have been a good artwork. But I got caught in the moment, and I needed lots of red and a sense of movement:
I made the vase edges less defined, then used a black oil pastel to define the poppies and add some shadows. I scribbled round and round each poppy with a pencil and the tip of a palette knife, which was unabashedly hedonistic! But I love the textures. Gold paint was scraped onto the canvas using a palette knife. OOooo I just LOVE palette knives!!! Such fun! I love big brushes, too!!
To add the final touches, I used thinned-down white acrylic and a brush for my very favourite part of my ‘artistry’! The SPLATTERS!!!!! Yay! I get really physical, hurling the paint across the painting! i do think it gives a sense of movement though.
Hey Presto….’Fizzy Poppies’ had emerged in a whirl of evolution!!
So there you have it!! The evolution of Fizzy Poppies! I am going to enter it into the Ferens Open Exhibition 2024 (the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull). Last year, my watercolour painting, ‘Cluckers’ was chosen for the exhibition. I used to visit the Ferens very often with Grandad Pett and never would have believed I would have work displayed in there. Honoured and privileged!
You can find me on Instagram: @sarahdruryart and on Facebook: Sarah Drury Art. And I can be contacted though the contact page on this website.
Fizzy Poppies, acrylics on canvas, 40×32″ © 2024 Sarah Drury
A BLUEBIRD IN EIGHT WAYS
~ After Wallace Stevens
I
A poet is a bluebird
who drizzles the sky
with indanthrene songs
II
I am making words
out of the bluebird’s tongue,
littered on the paper
like a rejection letter.
III
The bluebird looks at me
with its reticent eye -
wants to sprinkle lies
in the blackbird’s ear.
IV
I have no time for cheats.
Bluebirds are full of infidelity,
wagging their sweet
little tails at the worms.
V
I know a fine song
if it licks my heels.
I smile and my breast heaves
at the fortissimo.
VI
When the bluebird flies away
the chicks’ chasm-jaws
snatch at a stopped watch.
VII
The snow dusts the blue wings.
Makes snow angels on the ice.
I fall, my womb a pomegranate.
VIII
I never did fit in a box.
Too big dreams for a small forest.
No blackbirds with carbon plumage.
I want diamonds.
Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022
Wallace Stevens, (1954), 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York. Random House.
Images by krstnwatts0 and Johnny Gunn from Pixabay
the starry-eyed mermaid 