Poem
Liz Berry
BIRMINGHAM ROLLER
BIRMINGHAM ROLLER
BIRMINGHAM ROLLER
Wench, yowm the colour of ower town:concrete, steel, oily rainbow of the cut.
Ower streets am in yer wings,
ower factory chimdeys plumes on yer chest,
yer heart’s the china ower owd girls dust
in their tranklement cabinets.
Bred to dazzlin in backyards by men
whose onds grew soft as feathers
just to touch you, cradle you from egg
through each jeth-defying tumble.
Little acrobat of the terraces,
we’m winged when we gaze at you
jimmucking the breeze, somersaulting through
the white breathed prayer of January
and rolling back up like a babby’s yo-yo
caught by the open donny of the clouds.
Note:
Black Country : Standard
yowm : you are
cut : canal
tranklement : bits & bobs or ornaments
onds : hands
jeth : death
jimmucking : shaking
babby : little child
donny : hand
© 2015, Liz Berry
From: Black Country
Publisher: Chatto & Windus, London
From: Black Country
Publisher: Chatto & Windus, London
Liz Berry
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1980)
Liz Berry is a new poet at the intersection of several current trends in UK poetry. Her work is firmly rooted in place; indeed her first collection, Black Country, is named after the area of the West Midlands where she grew up. She is one of a growing number of poets who are using vernacular and dialect, in celebration of the variety of English and as a way of refreshing and refashioning it. Sh...
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BIRMINGHAM ROLLER
Wench, yowm the colour of ower town:concrete, steel, oily rainbow of the cut.
Ower streets am in yer wings,
ower factory chimdeys plumes on yer chest,
yer heart’s the china ower owd girls dust
in their tranklement cabinets.
Bred to dazzlin in backyards by men
whose onds grew soft as feathers
just to touch you, cradle you from egg
through each jeth-defying tumble.
Little acrobat of the terraces,
we’m winged when we gaze at you
jimmucking the breeze, somersaulting through
the white breathed prayer of January
and rolling back up like a babby’s yo-yo
caught by the open donny of the clouds.
Note:
Black Country : Standard
yowm : you are
cut : canal
tranklement : bits & bobs or ornaments
onds : hands
jeth : death
jimmucking : shaking
babby : little child
donny : hand
From: Black Country
BIRMINGHAM ROLLER
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