The Paper Sky

By El Gruer

This is the first published collection of poems by El Gruer, a performance poet whose work has earned her the title ‘The People’s Poet’. El’s writing is rooted in the belief that poetry is for everyone and she aims to make poetry something to be experienced rather than just read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Release date: Apr 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781848257696

Book preview

Copyright © El Gruer 2015

First published in 2015 by the Canterbury Press Norwich

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press.

The Author has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

978 1 84825 767 2

Typeset by Regent Typesetting

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon

Contents

Paper Sky

Hoods

The Cousin-hood

You asked me

When Leaves Fall

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Spring

The same sky

The Cruellest Word in Mother-hood

A Lullabye

Misconception

Homebirth

Greenhome

April

Venison Stew Recipe

Scars tell stories

I asked for bread

The Robin

The Half of It

Trafficked

Rwanda 1994

Svay Pak, Cambodia 2013

Gardening Tools 1988

Describe to me the Post-war

Eating Ate Away at Me

A Fix of Addiction

Chopping

Anniversary

Arcades

Afternoon Tea for One

On Writing Love

Notes Found in a Trench

Artism

Inheritance

The Lemon Drizzle Love Song

Genealogies

The Wedding

Crosswords

Hospital Bed – A week in the Death of

The Log Cabin

Elderly should be Senile and not Heard

Moments fold

Milk Bottle Memory

Becoming Lilian

Sunday Liturgy

Three Red Carnations

I wear on my sleeve, in blood

Sunday School

Author

I’m Sorry, Japan

Acorn

Weeping birds, don’t cry

God in a Box

Decompose our self plaster-casted pasts

For You,

With love

x

In the half-blink of morning,

I crawl to you in a whisper.

Preface

This collection was written from a heart longing to vocalise the breadth of human experience. These poems are a library of voices, both imagined and actual. Although none of these voices are explicitly mine, I am in all of them. I chose to step into the footsteps of the everyone and the no one.

Some of the longer poems are written for the stage and you may benefit from reading them aloud and some of the shortest can be used as meditations for the soul.

The Paper Sky also contains two series of poems that communicate a wider narrative, When Leaves Fall and Becoming Lilian.

I invite you into the raw space that all of these voices inhabit, in the hope that in experiencing others’ heartbeats, we would also meet our own gaze. It is my prayer that you might find an echo of yourself; after all, in the silence after gunshots, we are all one.

In the gasps