Touchlines of Fortitude: Written Works
The Forgotten
They sat on the shelf.
They sat on the shelf.
For years upon years.
In a jar, in a wrapper,
Indefinitely, in fear.
Smothered in dust.
Surrounded by flies.
Weightless and brittle,
lifeless and dry.
Melted together.
Bonded as one.
Too big to get out.
Stuck at the bottom, while others moved on.
But inside, a sweet.
Still good.
Still fine.
In the jar.
On the shelf.
With nothing but time.
By Greg Williamson
Heard the one about the gynaecologist and the artist?
By Becky Nuttall
Once I was a young artist raised in the Sixties and living the
Seventies. To the art school came the man raised in the Twenties
and living the Reformation. He is the Assessor. He sallies forth
into the studio and parks his tweed bum against the desk. He
measures me up a bit, taking in the merry Oxford bags and platform heel,
rolls his eyes over me a bit more, both measures and rolls his eyes over my
life class work and says obscurely “Ladies shouldn’t wear trousers unless,
of course, they are Marlene Dietrich” With that he stands up straight,
unbalancing the desk top, sending everything crashing to the floor. He
leaves me to clear up the mess he made, women shouldn’t wear trousers
when painting naked women because it is not ladylike and women tidy up
accidents.
After the birth of my first born in the 1970s I am in need of the services of a
gynaecologist. My two midwives, before and during the birth, had been single
women without children and the gynaecologist is male, neither unusual at
that time. The midwives are just on the right side of convent virgin bossy, the
gynaecologist just on the wrong side of over familiar. He is an arrogant man
giving me an examination with creepy familiarity. He explains the problem
with my cervix with all the empathy of a porn film director, violates me with
patronage, condescension and sneaky contempt. His perspective of my cervix
comes from another angle completely.
In 2018 I receive an art award for two paintings which it is thought
necessitates some explaining. I launch into details of how the work reflects
the inner workings of my past adolescence fears and longings, how it
references my influences of religious piety, religious violence and art history.
Two males speak. One, the judge of the awards, talks about the perspective,
planes and tone and the other male asks where I got it framed. My
perspective is lost in the theory.
On social media I respond to a male art critic, asking if a female art critic may
better understand the works of the female Surrealists. I am told I’m being
ridiculous.
I watch a programme about Dora Carrington, carefully inclusive, the critics
both male and female. All mutual admiration until the male critic cannot help
but laugh at the suggestion that Dora’s perspective was clouded by the want
of love and security before the love of art. In his perspective, her tone, the
plane, the frame speaks more than the artist. Dora ended her artistic life by
shooting herself when love died.
To women critics interested in telling the back story of female artists, speak
up a bit louder please. Our perspective is being drowned out by the men
banging in nails to construct frames of a different perspective while we ooze
out unseen underneath. Or am I still being ridiculous.
Claudi,
Instructions for an interactive poem
By Claudi Piripippi
Instructions for an interactive poem: make approval or disapproval sounds according to each word’s liking
characterises
categorises
documents
genderises
personifies
disciplines
legitimises
represents
officialises
sexualises
simplifies
classifies
inscribes
identifies
legalises
registers
instructs
archives
controls
records
defines
shapes
brands
codes
tracks
labels
signs
I have changed my name
illegal
uncoded
unofficial
unsigned
untracked
unshaped
undefined
unlabelled
illegitimate
unbranded
unarchived
unrecorded
unidentified
uninscribed
unclassified
uninstructed
uncontrolled
unregistered
indisciplined
unsexualised
unpersonified
ungenderised
uncategorised
unrepresented
undocumented
uncharacterised
UnDone
from loose roots to loose ends
from the past I walk a vowel lighter
I’ve truncated, broke a chain
regenerated my expression
purged origins and organs
changed-my-end
freed-my-future
self-tailored-cut
I named myself
Call Me
claudi
Mother
By Dr Katy Chisenga
My body is brilliant,
My body is strong,
My body withstands.
I lay there,
While they cut into me.
I bleed.
There is blood.
So much blood.
Your cry sounds like a dream,
As I float in and out.
But my body withstands.
Because my body is strong.
My body is brilliant.
Recovered but weak,
Or so I thought.
I take you home,
I mother you.
I am strong for you.
But not strong enough.
My body feels hot,
My heart beats fast.
Sweat drips down my face.
Infection.
Sepsis.
Near death.
I lay there,
While they cut into me.
I open.
There is pus.
So much pus.
I wake to see you in Grandma’s arms
I fight for you.
I am strong for you.
I come home for you.
I go slow,
I go steady.
I recover, but I am changed.
I live.
Try to thrive.
I survive.
Because my brain is strong,
My brain is brilliant.
My brain withstands.
Stepping Back
By Zena Farel
Drawn to unaccustomed sunshine
Spilling through parted shutters
The morning stillness
Of that empty room
Softly cushioning
The rawness of being
Someone new unidentified
In an untried place
Stumbling through parted shutters
And finding
By chance by design
A long-abandoned book
The spiral of pages
An arc
Of stepping stones
Filling the empty terrace
Unaccustomed sunlight
Spilling on an empty terrace
Spilling on symbols
Spilling on lines
I’d once known well
Words forming flesh
And rhythm and rhyme
Clothing head and feet,
Till there was someone
I half – remembered
Stepping back
Through parted shutters
The World’s Retreat
By Haley Haddow
I ask the question out loud now.
Not into the dark, but into the thinning air
of a world growing quieter around us.
What will happen to my child?
I see how cruel the world can be.
It sharpens its edges on the soft,
on the vulnerable.
Do you have patience?
The kind that grips like a paralytic chokehold.
He doesn’t know
how to wait, or how to apologise.
He is challenging, yes.
All-consuming, demanding
but not on purpose.
He is the sea, not the storm.
What will happen to my child?
If I’m not here?
When I’m not here?
He doesn’t do well when the world rearranges.
He struggles when things aren’t just so,
when they move in ways he cannot follow.
Do you understand?
You must move like breath around him.
I know his rhythms.
I have loved him through every version of himself.
Do you love him?
Not tolerate, but love.
And what happens
if you don’t?
Did I do too much, or not enough?
This Olympic maternal marathon
with no medal, no spectators.
Just laps around a life.
Eighteen years.
Only now, this dawning grief
the finish line of childhood
just another beginning.
An epiphany:
he needs more, forever.
They seemed to care more
when he was small, cute, and easy.
Now, I watch the kindness thin.
The tenderness doesn’t grow with him.
He’s five foot ten.
No longer small enough to be forgiven,
but still a child inside.
He needs the world to bend,
but it won’t.
It stiffens around him.
What will happen to my child?
If I’m not here?
When I’m not here?
I try to ask him.
Not with words.
With my eyes.
With gestures that shape meaning from the quiet.
What do you want?
Tell me your dreams.
I know you have them,
I see them flicker behind your eyes.
But I cannot hear them. You do not say,
despite knowing the language of your silence.
I fear I’m the only one who ever looked.
Perhaps I could ask.
Could someone else learn?
Would anyone ever choose him... like I do?
Is there a heaven?
Let there be.
Where I can still see him, love him,
be what the world won’t be:
safe, constant,
home.
This myth of strength
has railed against me,
now battered and bruised,
and yet I wear it still,
since the day I first held him.
Because if I’m not here.
What will happen to my child?
If I’m not here.
When I’m not here.
Small Truces
By The Poetry Beast
Pain arrives like weather:
a drizzle of ache pooling, cooling,
like a fang pressed against silence.
A sudden squall shrinks her world,
tilts the walls of life.
Storms where words for pain
dissolve into lies,
where breath alone
keeps back madness.... She abides.
The Poetry Beast
The world seeping. The back door sighed. The kettle clicked. The hallway fan rattled unless I pressed
its base with the edge of my foot. Each morning began with these small negotiations: a click
answered, a rattle silenced, a sigh coaxed into stillness. One truce after another, until the house
finally yielded and silence allowed me to pass.
I move through the house as though each object must be reasoned with. I hook a chair with my
hip to shift it aside. I lean into doors until they agree to swing. I press the latch with my chin until it
clicks. Every success is quiet, unremarkable, yet each feels like morning itself—fragile permission to
continue.
The storm inside me has its own rules. I do not try to name it. Naming only makes promises I do not
keep. Instead, I measure it by the things it distorts: the weight of a spoon I can no longer lift, the tap I
must coax with my shoulder, the light that falls on the sink too harsh, too revealing.
Breath becomes the truest measure: in, and the walls tilt; out, and they steady again. In, and
language deserts me; out, and a sentence returns, carrying me one more step.
When silence finally comes, it is never peace, only a narrow corridor through which I can pass. I take
it. I set the kettle boiling, though I may not drink the tea. I stand in the kitchen, watching the steam
drift upwards like thought losing interest.
Beyond the window, a van door slams, and a dog gives a tentative bark before thinking better of
it. The back door sits still, almost closed, as if it never invited the world in. I let it pretend. I pretend
along with it.
By the time the kettle cools, the ache has eased. The storm has emptied itself. I do not celebrate.
I nudge the fan once more with my heel and cross the room carefully, as if I’ve been granted an
amnesty—moving softly through the house that has taught me, and that I have taught in turn, the
hard art of small truces.
Do you know what they do to women like you?
By Miriam Calleja
Weary as you may be
you have been know for smart solutions
for weathering decades
cooking more meals
mending and measuring.
Your body the result of shifting trends
you decided to abandon—
your cauldron deep
with medicine and curse.
What they don’t understand
makes them want your blood
discomfort makes their palms itch
And so, they throw you
from the belltower every year
it is a spectacle for the children
and every year you
take more punishment
barely lick your wounds.
The town speaks of it
until the next distraction
(they are easily distracted)
They throw an effigy of a black cat
think to test the tower and its height
the ground beneath—
babes sticky with candy floss
look on, their dumb mouths agape.
Rising Through the Silence
By Ingrid Brown
As a woman navigating the art world, I have often found that the most profound challenges are the
ones unseen. Quiet obstacles have at times made the journey feel almost impassable. Opportunities
sometimes seemed tied to paths I could never take without losing myself. I chose to stay true to
my own vision, even when it meant exclusion or delay. It was precisely in these moments that I
discovered the resilience that has come to define my practice, and my idea of success has changed
dramatically as a result.
Persistence, I have learned, is not always loud or celebrated. It is found in the quiet act of returning
to the studio, in trusting one’s vision even when others do not. Every rejection, every whispered
doubt, became an invitation to reflect, to refine, and to strengthen my work. The challenges I faced
were not merely professional, they were deeply personal. Yet, within that tension, I cultivated
patience, self-belief, and a sense of purpose that could not easily be shaken.
Transformation comes in many forms. Sometimes it is visible, in the evolution of a piece of art;
sometimes it is internal, a subtle reshaping of how I understand my own voice and value. One of the
most powerful and transformative acts for me has been learning to listen to what feels right and
true, again and again. It has been a difficult exercise, requiring me to fail repeatedly and to observe
how often I had ignored my instincts in order to fit in, accommodate others, or navigate lingering
unhelpful societal expectations.
Honouring my core beliefs and staying true to my values, even discovering what those values truly
are, has allowed me to slowly build a network of individuals who share a similar approach and
mindset.This practice of listening to myself, of honouring my own vision, has been essential in a
world that often pressures women to conform, even perform, where femininity or sensuality are
sometimes leveraged to get noticed.
Rising is not always a dramatic ascent. Often, it is found in small, steadfast choices: to continue, to
create, to assert one’s presence even in spaces that are not always welcoming. As women, whether
in studios, on stages, on the field, or anywhere, our persistence is a form of quiet revolution, a refusal
to be diminished or silenced.
Through these experiences, I have come to understand that endurance and transformation are
intertwined. The challenges we face shape us, but they do not define us. What endures is our ability
to rise again, to meet each moment with courage and intention, and to find within the struggles the
raw material for creation, expression, and ultimately, liberation.
She
By Orode Faka
She lays her head down travelling seas on dreams.
wandering lands;
playfully.
Free.
searching her destiny.
Imagining what could have been
if geography and science not intervened.
She is they
imprisoned behind fears’ gate
wondering if she’s safe
whilst Poverty stands guard
fully armed
with hopeless-filled rifles
ready to stifle
minds that see beyond the illusion.
She is history
His story
held in a time that he said existed,
ideologies twisted,
shaped as protection instead a deception
and the truth
really
will
set
her
FREE.
She is we
had the ifs of fate shifted by one degree
so that she not we
wakes in a world where possibilities explored
can’t be ignored
and choice
is the dreamer’s reward
for all the battles fought.
She deserves the best.
To be equipped and discover her quest.
To create,
to give,
to receive,
to rise,
to fall
and to rise again
to live
and do her best
to always be
HER version of SHE.
Trembling Hands
By Preena Mistry
You said Yes...
Like you had a choice
One meeting
No words
Just a glance
Then the rings
The tea cup clattering in your hands.
Whatever is best
Just do what’s expected
Unquestionable trust
For a life you deserve
Those trembling hands
Sweep away your childhood
Seek the feet of your parents
Gripping on for a moment
To the sweetness and the spice
Fresh masala and chai
Her soft silk sari
The honk of the taxi
Landing head first
To a cold reception.
His Fiery Words
Not an ounce of affection.
Those trembling hands
Shaped two loving children
Rolled out their roti
Massaged their pain
Washed their hair
Scrubbed out their stains
Fed us when you could not eat
Bathed us when you could not drink
Prayed when you could not speak
Those trembling hands
Still holding us steady
Our home in your palms
The weight so heavy.
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