'Believe us, they say, it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning' by Melanie Goemans
Stone age mother and baby burial with a swan’s wing, circa 4000 BC. by Corinna Board
Tapestries by Louise Mather
Terroir by Jen Feroze
Green Tea by Julian Bishop
Dedicate by Sarah Doyle
On the Edge by Kathryn MacDonald
The cows on the Ice by Carl Alexandersso
Cortège by Dorothy Burrows
Turbulence by Alice Stainer
At Fifteen by Jenny Mitchell
Bethlehem, New Hampshire by John Grey
Liminal Interval by Ben Groner III
Pain à la Duchesse by Peter Donnelly
Repair Bill by Alan Kissaine
Recluse by Sue Spiers
No Timidity with Snow by Matthew J. Andrews
Those Evenings I Remember by Carolyn Oulton
Crossword clues for longing by Imogen Osborne
Love As Inter-Molecular Spaces by Jayant Kashyap
Timescales by Derek Graf
The Dark by Sam Bootle
Overdue Prayer by Bethany Jarmul
Learning to Sew by Amanda Ferguson
Cabbage Scrunchie by Maria Sledmere
Water by Adam Panichi
Point of View by Mary Brown
The Hug by Dani Janae
In your second mojave springtime by JC Alfier
Sappho takes her muse into town by Karan Chambers
How to turn one villain into two by Susan Gordon
Middle Ages by EG Cunningham
Evensong, Durham Cathedral by Amaleena Damle
Finding a Home by Helen Openshaw
Spinning by Peggy Hammond
Unroot by Emmy Roday
Hand printed swan feather by Leonie Amsler
A note on reading: If you are reading this issue on a phone you may find that switching to desktop view restores the intended structure and linebreaks of the broader poems.
Welcome to Issue 10 of Dust Poetry Magazine, with 35 new poems, and artwork by Melanie Goemans and Leonie Amsler.
The title of Melanie Goemans' wonderful painting on our cover:"Believe us, they say, it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning... (in the broken world)", taken from Mary Oliver's 'The Invitation', feels particularly poignant as we launch our issue this October, against such a horrifying backdrop in the news. We hope these poems, full of so many different kinds of love and joy, pain and loss, and ending with Leonie Amsler's beautiful swan feather might bring a sense of comfort, enjoyment or hope, wherever you are reading them.
Issue 10 feels like a special issue for Dust because it's the first created by a team. I'm delighted to have been joined by my brilliant new co-editors, Bhavya Bhagtani and Catherine Redford, both of whom began working on Dust only two months ago but have already brought so much talent, wisdom, thoughtfulness, and fresh insight to the editorial process.
That process will sometimes, a bit like when writing a poem, begin to lift up and seemingly find a path of its own, and it's one of the many joys of editing, as those glimmers of serendipity and synchronicity begin to appear. This issue didn't have a theme, but as we began to read through submissions birds started to arrive. Poem after poem, and followed by a few cows too, the birds kept flying in.
The birds flying across the cover of Issue 10 are by artist Melanie Goemans. Melanie grew up in the Lincolnshire fens, spending time in Italy between studying Florentine Renaissance Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London (BA Hons. and MA with distinction). Then followed MA Fine Art (Painting) at the University of Gloucestershire, and a series of residencies including at the Florence Trust, Highbury. She now works from her studio in Cambridgeshire. Over the past 20 years Melanie has exhibited at the Jerwood Space, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, Thompson’s City Gallery, jaggedart, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, Kittoe Contemporary, London; Belgrave Gallery, St Ives; The Stratford Gallery, Stratford upon Avon; Gallery 94 at Glyndebourne Opera House; Irving Contemporary, Oxford, and elsewhere. She is represented by Beaux Arts Bath, Cornwall Contemporary, Penzance, and Eastwood Fine Art, Hampshire. Her work is held in collections worldwide including The Dorchester, the Pizzuti Collection, Imago Mundi, Exton Park Vineyard, Fox Linton, Bridgeman Art Library. She was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize (2020) and has featured in the ING Discerning Eye and National Open Art Exhibitions.
Of her artistic process, Melanie says: "Walking my dogs in the early morning I notice the small seasonal shifts. I think about the quiet beauty in the everyday, particularly in the natural commonplace things, rarely celebrated. My paintings are inspired by what I see around me: the form of a tree; the long lines of twining stems; the intricacies of birds in flight. Often I am reminded of a poem or a piece of music and revisit an idea resonating there. Before the layers of gesso, I draw in charcoal or acrylic and the subsequent gilding or linseed oil shine in contrast. I paint in oil from my photographs, tracing the lines loosely with a fine square ended brush, observing the tonal shifts, and the marks build up the complicated patterns of the whole. Using traditional materials, my work draws attention to these fleeting moments and underscores their value.”
Thank you to each of our outstanding poets and to Melanie and Leonie for such wonderful artwork, it is an honour to be able to feature all of this work in Dust. Thank you too, to everyone who submitted work for the issue, it's always a tremendous privilege to read your poems, thank you for sharing them with us. And lastly, thank you to you the reader, and to everyone who supports Dust on and offline, there would be no Issue 10 without you, we hope you enjoy it.
Tara Wheeler
Founding Editor