Christine Hammond, "Sojourn: Moments in Poetry"

 

Christine Hammond began writing poetry whilst studying English Literature at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her early poems were published in The Gown (QUB) and Women’s News where, as one of the original members she also wrote Arts Reviews and had work published in Spare Rib. She returned to writing after a long absence and her poetry has been featured in a variety of anthologies including The Poet’s Place and Movement (Poetry in Motion – The Community Arts Partnership), The Sea (Rebel Poetry Ireland), all four editions of Washing Windows and Her Other Language (Arlen House) and literary journal The Honest Ulsterman. She has also been a reader at Purely Poetry - Open Mic Night, Belfast.

Her collection Sojourn: Moments in Poetry has just been published in both digital and paperback forms.

About Sojourn: Moments in Poetry, by Christine Hammond 
Stylistically concise and visually vivid, this collection invites the reader into a reflective space – one filled with poetic resonance, yet open to individual interpretation. Whether inspired by real life, fictional construct or social observation, the poems in Sojourn flow with a deliberate rhythm that mirrors the title’s essence: a journey through moments that shape and define us. All are skilfully observed and articulated, frequently using the descriptive lens of nature and the natural order as a mechanism to contextualise, interpret and seek spiritual understanding. 

You can read more about Sojourn here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From Sojourn: Moments in Poetry

Flight Path

 

         Upwash to Strangford

Long and languid

the dark nights hang

heavy as a cloak 

festooned by Ursa Major

in the lane bats squeak, cats screech

a river runs tidal

and the moon’s soft filament flickers

dying to sunrise

slowly, the wild geese appear

a prelude of eager starts, then

more and more

join to shape the sacred apex

faith in formation

divine travellers lining the sky 

calling their sojourn across the dawn

gifting light from a slipstream 

Ritual

First, the ting-clang comforting din

of companion set with shovel

tuned to the scrape of grate and bucket then

fold, roll, wrap, tie, tuck it with sticks, with coal

till the glow of broadsheet rosettes

cast a news flash for the era

and headlines despatched themselves 

from the hearth

immaculate hearth of the fire altar

lit by my mother, high priestess of the house

who, standing back decreed

that coal’s more like slack, must speak to the coalman