Poetry / Elizabeth Parker
Bristol poet Elizabeth Parker publishes collection inspired by her adopted city
Elizabeth Parker is a Bristol-based poet and co-host of the monthly sellout poetry night at El Rincon, Under The Red Guitar (which she founded with Robert Walton).
Along with Walton, as well as Claire Williamson and Abeer Ameer, she is also a member of The Spoke poetry quartet.
Growing up in London and The Forest of Dean, she first moved to Bristol to study an MA in Mythology, and has remained ever since.
is needed now More than ever
Dedicated to her late sister Helen, Cormorant is Parker’s newly published second collection, containing many poems inspired by her adopted city and its cormorant population, as well as poems of family, motherhood and loss.
“My writing is characterised by precise imagery,” she explains; “texturing of sound, focus on technique, and sense of place.”
The introductory notes to the collection cast the titular waterbird as an emotional conduit for channelling, and reckoning with, our own experiences of life.
Elizabeth Parker – photo: Chris Hill
“The cormorant is the present and the past, both part of and beyond these human stories. It can be an omen, the devil, the enemy of anglers, or perhaps just an elusive subject watched by humans.
“Parker shows us how to regard the world compassionately. As she considers the miracle of the cormorant, she reminds us of the importance of wonder, offering an uplifting antidote to difficult times.”
A special launch event for Cormorant will be taking place at Waterstones, The Galleries on March 21, featuring Parker, along with Walton and Williamson as guest readers.
Cormorant
on rivers
black curl from the Avon.
Cormorant at source
plucking at tributaries
where elvers string their bodies
to the current.
Cormorant at confluence
of salt and fresh, deep and shallow
rivers changing names.
Cormorant at mouth
streak above the estuary
brandishing fish.
Sea Cormorant
dipping feet to land
ripping the Atlantic.
Cormorant beyond
hinterlands, borderlands
backwaters.
Cormorant holding fast
as swallows, sand martins
flee winter.
Cormorant inland
locked to reservoirs, urban rivers
when I can’t think past this city.
Cormorant in colonies
six omens in a dying beech.
Slow city cormorant
wings half-spread on a jetty
hooked on air to dry.
Cormorant grand
landing full-stretched
wake of shredded water
the harbour’s centrepiece
dark as cast iron.
I want cormorant every day
nothing in my life so streamlined
as the sleek hook.
Black crucifix
surfacing from its dive,
spirit of the drowned.
Elizabeth Parker
Cormorant – Poetry Launch with Elizabeth Parker is at Waterstones, The Galleries on March 21 at 7pm. Tickets are available at www.waterstones.com. The book is available to buy now from Seren Books.
Follow Elizabeth Parker at www.elizabethparkerpoetry.wordpress.com.
Main photo: Gemma Compton
Read more: ‘A major talent in the making’: Bristol-based poet Kaycee Hill
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