Kate Fox talks about writing
To the Scottish Poetry Library...
Links to some other of Kate’s poems online
Saturday Live Poetry archive - www.bbc.co.uk
For Fest Magazine during the 2010 Edinburgh Festival - www.festmag.co.uk - Article 1
For Fest Magazine during the 2010 Edinburgh Festival - www.festmag.co.uk - Article 2
For The Skinny during the 2010 Edinburgh Festival - www.theskinny.co.uk - Article 1
For The Skinny during the 2010 Edinburgh Festival - www.theskinny.co.uk - Article 2
In Diamond Twig - www.diamondtwig.co.uk
Collaging for the Flow Festival - www.freewordonline.com
In Magma - www.poetrymagazines.org.uk
Here’s a random but representative selection of some writings. Some commissioned, some not.
This one was written for R4’s Saturday Live:
The psychiatrist's confession
I'm here to give you a label,
I'm here to give you a diagnosis,
Putting you in a psychological category,
It's just my little neurosis.
Someone who analyses fires
is a Pyrobrainiac,
a person who loves records more than cuddles,
you'd be a Decks maniac
Liking Hardy not Laurel-
Stanorexic,
A hater of quiche-
Flanorexic.
Are you someone who has difficulty deciding which side of the cheek
to present during social greetings?
You're Kisslexic.
Have urges to tread in drying concrete;
Cementia.
Get annoyed if climbing vines aren't neat;
Wisteria.
Believe you need to get another dog to stop your first one feeling down?
You're suffering Twopets syndrome,
Glad never to leave one particular Lanashire town?
That's Stockport syndrome.
Yes, there's lots more personality disorders
than were previously known.
Going to Gregg's more than once a week?
You might be Piecotic.
Washing your car give you all the joy you seek?
You're probably Auto erotic.
Belgian accent and a curly, black tache?
You must be Poirotnoid,
Like visiting graveyards and churches and sometimes get the urge
to dust pew rails and take church vows;
AsVergers Syndrome,
Your heart beats faster when you walk through a field of cows;
Bullimia Nervosa
Get a buzz from honey?
You're a beedophile,
Quantum physics and vegetarian cream cheese part of your style?
That's Quarkolepsy
Frankly couldn't give a damn?
Rhett Butler syndrome.
I'm here to give you a label,
give you a diagnosis,
putting you in a psychological category,
is just my little neurosis.
Grief Talking
Janes, Jamie,
not Jennifer Jane,
names,
James,
miss, missing
when you lose
you lose your ane
your aims
names
trying to say the right name
that is how
I do feel, I do feel her pain
miss Janes
blames
me.
Dustclouds form as
words disperse in helicopter flail.
Her son’s blood
inking sand.
Lack, lack, lack,
gunning in her head.
His body incomplete,
a word
with the last letters
crossed out.
Stop
We run out of petrol at midnight on the A19
after scanning the road for a service station that never comes.
We recline the front seats
lay back holding hands
cocooned in the humming dark
like on an aeroplane
when the cabin lights have dimmed
remembering again just the two of us.
He tells me how, after reading Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale,
in his teens, he had resolved to live by the Knight’s code
Courtly Love
Love for Love’s sake,
protecting a woman from danger without her ever knowing.
Our bedroom whispers are interrupted
once by a Polish lorry driver
knocking on my window
asking if we need anything
and again by a Policeman
responding to our hazard lights.
At last the RAC man pulls up,
a rescuer in fluorescent orange
I pay him for the petrol he brings,
pour it in carefully, trying not to spill a drop.
I notice he has got out of the car too
is standing in the freezing night
just in view.
C Beebies does Conference Season
Once a year, they leave the House of Jeeryboos,
where they go in and out of wooden cupboards in shiny shoes,
and take chauffeur driven Brum Brums
(or the Ninky Nonk if their hair's well set)
and go play by the seaside,
or far from where they usually get.
To the Land of the Dark North where
people say "What" not "Pardon",
the ToryTubbies went In the Right wing Garden.
Laa Laa was there,
Po was standing proud,
but not Tipsy Wipsy
cos no Torytubby toasts were allowed.
Noo Noo Labour went to the Land of Sad,
and pulled their mouths down,
even when it was time to Listen with Mother Brown,
or to the old Blairytales.
Though they cheered up when Mandy Pandy came out to play
and said they could fight another day.
Again! Again! They cry
Eh Oh said the Torytubbies.
Uh Oh said Noo Noo Labour
and even the Sun fell out of the sky.
And grown ups became children,
and children became grown ups,
And flashing up special words again and again is what they all do,
and have bright colours and loud music and that bloke from U2,
and say a money shower's on the way or the crunch monster's coming to get you,
either way-it's us who'll be in charge cos we're bigger than you.
Chief Nursing Officers on the Banks of the Tyne
You are bridges between
old and new,
between all that's done and still to do.
You help people cross between
sickness and cure,
between uncertainty and being sure,
between Florence’s lamp,
and electric light,
between the comforting sun of day
and the wise moon of night,
You ford the river
between the living and dying,
hold out a hand
to make doing from trying,
negotiate boundaries
between doctors and nurses,
women and men,
you’re that bit in a song,
between chorus and verses,
a bridge between those who say it’s all thinking
and those who think it’s all caring,
between those who want to give it all away
and those who get how it’s sharing,
you know the paths between body and mind,
and heart and head,
that the way between knowledge and action
isn’t dead.
You sometimes feel stuck in the middle,
you are the way through
and talking together
is what will open the bridge
between the rest of the world
and you.
Caller 103 Wins the Madonna Tickets
She’s counting
one elephant, two elephant
like waiting for fake tan to dry
or the blue line on a pregnancy test.
He’s counting
green lights on the phone board.
Numbered up to seven
not one hundred and three.
He sees seven flashing green,
adjusts his jeans
prepares to choose.
She’s got a feeling in her water
she says to her Mum,
starts to press redial.
He’s got to get a caller to air now,
jabs buttons, “Hello” and “Keep trying”
rejects too old voices, not quite right voices.
She’s listening to her inner self,
like it says in Cosmo,
doing it when it feels right.
He’s listening for someone
who’ll go off like a rocket on bonfire night,
just a breath’s enough to tell.
She hears the phone being picked up
and everything goes blurry.
He shouts “You’re lucky caller 103!”
and has to turn his headphone volume down.
Triumphant, buzzing,
telling her Mum
she knew she’d be caller 103, she just knew.
Replaying her reaction,
telling his producer
he knows how to pick a screamer, he just knows.