This week we welcome the work of Scotland-based poet Catherine Faulkner. Chosen by guest editor Jess Green for our series on ‘Difference & Defiance’, Jess Says “I enjoy the power and the confidence of this poem with some beautiful lines and a rare effective use of alliteration – ‘scattering it Samson strong’ and ‘cuticles and curls’. The poems is well paced, sure of itself and reveals something new on each re-read.”
Change
First she cut her hair to the quick,
Scattering it Samson-strong to the ground,
Laughing at men who thought that courage
Was found in cuticles and curls.
Next she neatly parcelled up her eyes,
Offered them as jewelled prize to the Medusa,
Sister gorgon too brilliant for jealous gods
And the fallow moods of fickle mortals.
She left in a pageant of blood,
Through every man who called her ‘girl’,
Through every one who told her she could not change,
She left a universe tilting in her wake,
And not for anything, anything but her own sake.
Catherine Faulkner is half Irish, half English and was raised in Southern France; all of which give great scope for creative imaginings. She worked in Arts Fundraising for over 13 years but relocated to Highland Perthshire in 2019 after deciding that London had had quite enough of her soul. Catherine’s main writing focus is on poetry and she also writes regularly on food and travel.
Celebrating Change 