Tarot

Many thanks to Editor Kit Willett for including 'Rock Oysters' and 'Auckland, Good Friday' in the inaugural issue of Tarot Journal. I'm pleased to have my work alongside poems by Ria Masae, Siobhan Harvey, and others.

Riptide climate matters

 

 

Proud to have work in this important #ClimateMatters issue of Riptide Journal, many thanks to Editors Sally Flint and Virginia Baily.

 

The issue is free to download, but for anyone having difficulty accessing the site, here is my poem:

 

Letters to Dad 

 

I write to you, Dad, who will not read my letters,  

who memorised The Rime of the Ancient Mariner  

and knew by heart the one-eyed yellow idol,  

was never idle but for the hours mined 

 in front of the hearth with the tv casting shadows  

on your big chin. Your chin, I have inherited. In age,  

I have yet to surpass the numbers of your birthday  

the last time we shared cake, a tell-tale crease  

curves from cheek to cheek regardless, shapes 

 an image of myself in your face 

 when you moved to land your fist. 

 Did you feel like you were punching yourself?  

One letter away from dead,  

does guilt hang weighty like an albatross,  

like me aged kid with my arms around your neck, 

 asking you, Dad, please will you read to me?  

You told me two-dimensional stories out your head,  

had imagination and could build sheds from scrap, 

but sat on my homework because it remained flat for you, 

who, when I choked, held me upside-down, 

like the book you couldn’t read,

 until rind fell from my mouth like pressed flowers.  

 

 

Rachel Fenton 2020

All the beautiful thank yous

 

Thanks to C J Anderson-Wu for publishing "Has History Become Just a Video Game", my review of Sylvia Petter's debut novel All the Beautiful Liars, on Booksie, and extra thanks to Petter's publisher Eye Lightening Books for including an excerpt and linking to the full review on their website.

In verse

 

A big thank you to Editors Paul Farley and Andrew McRae for including my poem 'River Dove' in the beautiful anthology that is Places of Poetry, Mapping the Nation in Verse. It's a beautiful book. I'm delighted it is now launched and I can get my hands on a copy.

Takahē running

I couldn't be more pleased to have made the longlist of the Monica Taylor Poetry Prize for the second year running - many thanks to judge Siobhan Harvey! Wishing congratulations and luck to everyone else listed!

Strands longlist

Woke to the lovely news that my flash has made the longlist for the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition #9, thanks to Jose Varghese and the Strands team! Stoked to be listed with so many wonderful writers.

Overground underground

Chuffed to bits that my graphic memoir "Dance the Night Away" is included in this inaugural issue of Overground Underground - part of my New Shoes series (See 'Graphics Alley' on my side bar for other pieces from this series). It couldn't have found a better home! 

Submissions are open for issue #2, so if you have something, send it in.