Bert Flitcroft was born and brought up in Lancashire but now lives in the Midlands. He has three collections of poetry already published: Singing Puccini at the Kitchen Sink, Thought-Apples and Just Asking. His work has appeared in a number of national magazines. He is a prize-winning poet, has been Poet in Residence at the Southwell Poetry Festival and has performed at a number of national festivals including The Edinburgh International Book Festival. He was Staffordshire Poet Laureate 2015–17 and curated the on-line Staffordshire Poetry Collection. He has worked as resident poet with one of our "National Treasures," The Wedgwood Collection at the V&A; as resident poet with the prestigious R.I.B.A exhibition "The Road Less Travelled"; and recently as part of the University of Keele project "Labelling the Museum." He offers a professional mentoring service and has a long and successful history of running workshops and giving readings, not just to local poetry groups but in libraries, arts centres, gardens, galleries museums. His website is here.
About Seeing the Light, by Bert Flitcroft
This book works as a collection from youth through to old age and all points between, recording moments and incidents when life and the world are suddenly seen afresh and with a greater understanding - Seeing the Light metaphorically as well as (occasionally) physically. It contains both serious poems alongside a few light-hearted ones which I hope will raise a smile or two.
You can see more details about Seeing the Light on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection.
From Seeing the Light
Headland
It's a strolling stroll along the rise and fall
of the rolling face of the thrusting cliffs
where well-fed seagulls squabble and swoop
and the Skua threatens to skua its prey
to the mounted weathered whalebone skull
longing out to its long-lost sculling kin
in their deep and wail and the score
of their song and wave of the waves
to the gap and the cleft where the rock
stands proud defying the rock-and-roll
and the jiving swell of the surging sea
when the winter wind cuts colder than stone
and whistles its wildness and scorns
the clouds that scud and slide down
the black and blue and blustering sky
that roughs up foam-frothed crashing wet
in the caves at the shearing feet of the sheer
rock with its tufted pate speckled with nests
and gaping and gasping and desperate beaks
in the biting squalls of summer storms
and the screech and the swooping turn of the tern
with its stay-away warning scream and dive
that mean what they say to make children scamper
and adults scram from the peck and prick
the stinging cut and rip of razor-blade beaks
the thump and grip of curled and angry claws
on windmilling arms and paper-thin skin
from these fearsome sprites of the wild wild.
Bridges
This is my uncle Albert - all ginger hair
and ears like saucers, that cheeky smile
as if he’s pinched the last chocolate biscuit.
"Not a bad bone in his body," I’m told.
"Wouldn't hurt a fly." This was before the war,
before the children he would never have.
Killed he was, parachuting in at Arnhem.
A bridge too far for him, he came down
with a hole in his back the size of my fist.
This was taken outside the mill gates
on Crimea street. Nineteen he was. A hero.
I bear his name and carry it with pride.
My oldest daughter’s settled now, at home
with the kids, with the steep green hill
and dots of sheep behind. She has his smile,
that hint of mischief. And that ginger hair
that’s crossed a generation.
In the end some bridges build themselves.
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