Bill Lewis performing at the 2024 Rainham Poetry Festival. His shaman’s drum was made for him by a Native American craftsman from elk skin stretched on a cedar wood frame.
Kevin Bailey, editor of the long-running HQ Poetry Magazine, has described Bill Lewis as ‘one of our best contemporary poets’. Lewis is a national poet: he is rooted in his rural Kentish childhood (he was a founder of the Medway Poets), but his spirit flies to the ends of the world (particularly the Spanish-speaking world) and in between lies Britain. He is a magical realist who converses with foxes, bears, birds and the Green Man. He has true duende.
THE TURNING
1
Aspects of the year arm wrestle.
The running of the deer
On the bright apron of snow
As you sit sceptred
Holly-crowned and mistletoed
While nine cold children rise
From the ashes of the universe.
Fire you old shape-shifter, I have
Seen so many versions of you.
2
Invisible doors open and
An unseen messenger passes
Amongst the guests causing
All conversation to fall silent.
These are the Dead Days
Between one year and the next.
Castaway on an island made
Of unread and unwritten books
I remember my father using
A scythe to cut grass.
I remember a war that was
Fought decades before my birth.
I remember a tin bath that
Hung on the wall in the yard
It became symbol of our shame.
Black volcanic sand falls from
One glass chamber to the next.
I miss you now that you
No longer live in the mirror.
I came early to party and
Want to be the last to leave.
3
Now even the dead days have died.
January is up ahead and the god
Of doorways will close the white door
And open the green door for me.
Janus is such a Gentleman but no one
Asked if I wanted to step through.
He can look in two directions at once.
What use is that? Maybe for crossing
Roads but that’s look right, left then
Right again whereas he looks forward
And back. I ask myself is this a gift?
I think it is a curse to see all the mistakes
And good times that are now history.
The final door is steel. Behind it a furnace.
© Bill Lewis, 2024
The running of the deer: from ‘The Holly and the Ivy’
Nine cold children: refers to the 1962 Hammer film The Damned
The traditional Yuletide ‘hooden horse‘ of Kent today (Deal Hoodeners)
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SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
