True Tales of the Countryside

By Deborah Alma

Deborah Alma's poems are gloriously pungent, teeming with colours, textures and smells. In True Tales of the Countryside, her debut pamphlet, Alma writes vividly about sex, love and ageing in rural Shropshire and Wales, and reflects on her experiences as a mixed-race, British-Asian woman. Eyeballs pop, fresh piss steams and women come – loudly – in poems which often startle with their honesty and intimacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910139271

Deborah Alma

Deborah Alma has an MA in Creative Writing, teaches Writing Poetry at Worcester University and uses poetry to assist communication with people with dementia. Last year she was Writer in Residence for the Arvon Foundation at The Hurst and for the NHS Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference 2013. She is also the Emergency Poet.

Book preview

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True Tales of the Countryside

Poems by Deborah Alma

With an introduction by Helen Ivory

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The Emma Press

Contents

Cover

Title page

Dedication

Introduction, by Helen Ivory

I put a pen in my cunt once

New House

I Don’t Know Why

Running Away

On Sleeping Alone

Aldi

Chicken

Fridge Magnets

When You’re Ready, The Right Man Will Come Along

Cattle Lorry Lover

Getting It

I Am My Own Parent

Pink Pyjama Suit

My Mother Moves Into Adolescence

My Brown-Eyed Girl

He Sees Me

Quaker Hat

Lift Him Up Out

She describes herself like this

Small Rain

True Tales of the Countryside 1

True Tales of the Countryside 2

True Tales of the Countryside 3

True Tales of the Countryside 4

Acknowledgements & About the poet

About the Emma Press

Also from the Emma Press

Copyright page

Dedication

for Jim, with love

Introduction

A collection that begins I put a pen in my