Mary Palmer Profile

 

Mary Palmer was born in 1957. After nine years as an NHS dietitian, she took to writing poetry. Since her completion of an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University College, her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies and has been broadcast on radio and TV. She was a powerful performer of her poetry and a much-loved teacher. Her poem sequence Iona was published in 2008. She died in 2009.

 

 

“Mary Palmer, off the book, word-perfect and dramatic.” Rose Flint, Poetry News 2001.

 

“It’s life enhancing just listening to her”. Alan Summers, With Words 2008.

 

Awen title: Iona (poetry)

 

Next Awen title: Tidal Shift - selected poetry (due 8 September 2009)

 

for Mary

 

a poem by Jay Ramsay

 

Lawned paths above a sparkling clear river

overhanging branches: this is where you are now

and where you can wander as far as you want

with no one else around.

 

All quiet healing green.

 

Dear friend without a body

as youthful and alive as you ever were

with your trim hot figure, only four days gone –

 

and suddenly as we talk, you tell me

 

something so electrifyingly true

it lodges and fizzes inside my belly…

but lie still as I might

I can't quite hold the words you say

as I fall asleep again

                                and maybe

 

only the awakening itself matters

dissolving inside, from where your dream is real

 

safe as you are now as if among those trees

we gazed out into beyond the glass

the lawns leading to depth upon depth of green

and to this dream inside a dream.

 

Jay Ramsay 18.06.09

 

 

A poem for Mary by a former creative writing student

 

 

For Mary Palmer

 

You move

 

between

us gently

 

birdlike,

watch our silent scratching

 

heads

bent, intent

 

scraping for

words

 

like

fragrant seeds, you treasure

 

our

hatched offerings, ungainly strides,

 

pick

between the dust small jewels

 

and place

them, delicate as a breeze,

 

in full

sun

 

you smile

 

 

wistful curious

 

your own

bold passions hidden

 

breaking on

 

Iona’s far shores

 

like torn

flesh, gashed pages of

 

light and

shadow, scored by senses

 

wild,

unbroken dreams

 

splinters

of faith and fury

 

you sing

 

windswept

landscapes

 

red and silver

and gold

 

amber

leaves on birch

 

silken

forests of hanging larch

 

curtained

by mists, a piebald mare

 

nostrils

steaming, stamps her hooves

 

the frosted

earth

 

echoes on

the wind

 

your

burnished lament

 

 

Yvonne Orengo June 2009