Published by Erbacce Press, Graham Burchell's new collection of 35 poems is now available. Read the poet's statement about the book below, or check out his website at http://www.gburchell.com
From a second hand bookshop in Houston, Texas, I purchased a visually stimulating book about the similarities and
differences between Eastern Siberia and Alaska - "Divided Twins" as it was called. The photographer and the poet that had
produced it had filled this volume with wonderful anecdotes and glorious photographs of the people and places. I was
drawn to the images of women, particularly the old Siberian ladies (babushkas) wrapped in layer upon layer of protection
from the bitter cold. After a lifetime, the unforgiving weather of these northern lands had taken a toll on their faces. It also
occurred to me at some point a little earlier, that some of my poetry had been about lonely unmarried women (see "When
They are not Watching", "Grace" for example). I have no real notion of why I did this, only that I enjoyed the inventiveness,
the black humour of distorted reality. It was the seed of this collection of poems about encounters with, and perceptions of,
my opposite gender. These poems are my expressions of fabled or real encounters with the opposite sex either as family,
wives, girlfriends, artistic influences, mere glancing blows or faces staring out at me from a book.
From the book
THE KISS
(After Frida Kahlo)
Three photos snatched of Frida
and her onion-waist husband
in the first I see delicacy
she is far too thin a rod
I am reminded of the bus she rode
that broke that broke her back
a year later she is snapped
at the Golden Gate Bridge proud
confident hair glistening
head erect hands on hips
and then the third mi eleccion
my nonpareil a stolen moment
a nimble lens to snatch a kiss
upon a scaffold in Detroit
in this captured beat
she is that quiet energy
in a brook a given angel
swan-neck reaching to trust
for a moment of love and pride
planted on the lips on the face
of her onion-waist man
for his art and far-reaching fame
some tenderness snapped
amid the layers of pain