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Deborah Harvey is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy.
Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies, broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please, and awarded several major prizes, most recently the 2018 Plough Prize Short Poem Competition.
'The Shadow Factory' is her fourth poetry collection, following 'Breadcrumbs' (2016), 'Map Reading for Beginners' (2014), and 'Communio'n (2011), all published by Indigo Dreams.
Her historical novel, 'Dart', appeared under their Tamar Books imprint in 2013.
Poetry
138 x 216mm
68 pages
£9.99 + P&P UK
ISBN 978-1-912876-20-4
PUB: 29/11/2019
ORDER HERE
The Shadow Factory
Deborah Harvey
Praise for Oystercatchers:
'Every word is weighted. Although nothing
is explicit, something important is being enacted, and the epigraph by Camus adds an anchor, so that we guess his are the words being taken to the sea and released from the heart. I kept coming back to this and getting more from it.’
Pascale Petit
‘Deborah Harvey’s … poems are raw
and true. She is the real thing.’
Hugo Williams
The Good Dogs of Chernobyl
‘Don’t kill our Zhulka. She’s a good dog.’
So they stayed where they were told,
they never lost their faith
not even when the buses left
and the fallen star hissed flame and cracked
the air was thick with ash, the rain burned black,
and no one told them what they were
no one stroked their crackling fur
or scratched their ears.
Now they come through underbrush
on paths of wormwood, cinder, dust,
their paw prints brand the bitter earth
and none of them will sit or stay,
these dogs that know no human touch
that do not answer to a name.
Mr Cowper’s Hares
And so he sits without moving
holds them in his lap
not so tightly they’ll take fright
leap through the window
scream up the lane
outstripping every attempt to catch them
hurling themselves from rock to moss to wild supposition
till they’ve gone beyond all returning
no longer know they have a home
and not so softly they’ll take fright
bolt down the passage
out through the door
dodging the grasp of passers-by
plunging almost suicidal into tan pits
brought back half-drowned in a sack
caked with lime
and so he holds them without moving
pent between his hands
sees his reflection
in their mad amber eyes
Gottle o’ Geer
In one dream you’re
hunched on the recliner
I ferried from Cornwall
in the back of a friend’s Morris Minor
the gift you hated without even trying
resisting the leg rest, the dual motor riser
falling asleep uncomfortably upright
your body askew
a disjointed puppet
whose strings I could pull
now that you’re dead
manoeuvre your arms into a hug
throw my voice, make it sound like you’re saying
I love you –
The Shadow Factory
Was it nightfall or the sun eloping with a cloud?
No one knew for sure but whatever the cause
the shadow factory vanished.
Workers peered vainly at rollsigns on buses
traipsed to the gates where they’d seen it last;
on encountering rubble and broken glass
shrugged their shoulders, sighed,
applied for redeployment.
Perhaps it retired to a sunlit meadow,
sat itself down by a puttering stream
far from the whine of lathes, the scream of Harrier jump jets
perfecting hand shapes from watching wild rabbits,
learning how bats navigate by sound shadow
on moonless nights.
Oystercatchers
‘Aujourd’hui, maman est morte’
‘L’étranger’, Albert Camus
One day
the day she’s been waiting for will come
and she’ll take these words with her to the sea
unzip her coat, pull open her ribcage
let them fly as purposely
as oystercatchers
pulling the strings of the sky
and tide
lifting the weight from each blood cell
giving her permission
Herons Green Bay
Sometimes perfection’s too much
like on early autumn mornings, parked by the lake
in the space between daybreak and dawn,
when you know without counting there’s seven swans,
four calling crows, one eponymous heron
feathered in gold.
Write instead this rain-smudged dusk
bent and rusted railings breaking
with you convinced you’re plunging through them
and fifteen feet under you gasp and flounder
through ruined farmyards, orchards, mills,
fields of mangelwurzels sown for winter fodder
past the twice-drowned ghost of a village girl
dripping and squelching
upstairs to her bed
and not understanding that she’s dead
as she glances at headlamps on the causeway
mistakes them for falling stars
Holding the Balance
Look to the west and north
rain is blurring the bones of the moor
smearing the outlines of hills and tors
as you name them
Here on Holne ridge
against ink-blotched cloud
sheep are wet as if freshly painted
and once you’ve left everything will be tilted
fleeces crest the river’s rapids
stone will pour, crows dissolve against the sky
It’s all right to stop now
not even granite stays unchanged
let the land hold its own balance
under this shifting light
Cover photograph of Herons Green Bay ©Deborah Harvey
