Tag: Where Zebras Go

Posted in A to Z Challenge 2019

AtoZ Challenge; H is for Sue Hardy-Dawson

Posted on by Liz Brownlee

© Sue Hardy-Dawson

Sue Hardy-Dawson is a Yorkshire born poet, artist, and illustrator (she illustrated poet Matt Goodfellow’s first book, Carry Me Away), and is widely published in children’s poetry anthologies. She enjoys visiting schools and has provided workshops for the Prince of Wales Foundation for Children and the Arts. Being dyslexic she takes a special interest in encouraging reluctant readers and writers. Her first solo collection, of illustrated poems, Where Zebras Go (Otter-Barry Books) was long-listed for the North Somerset Teachers’ 2017 Book Award and shortlisted for the CLiPPA 2018. Sue has a new collection of shape poems, Apes to Zebras (Bloomsbury) with Roger Stevens and Liz Brownlee, and her second solo collection If I Were Other than Myself (Troika) is due out soon!

Here is her wonderful hare poem for the poetry feast:

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The Shape of Hare

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Sometimes he is long and thin
others, just ears
a grass apostrophe
but mostly he’s gone
lacing the meadow
with damp loam shadows.

somewhere distant
he’s a constellation
shades on the moon
waxing about cloud hills

he who has watched
our ancestors prayers
and dances
knows only the beat as rainfalls
the gentle music of silence
moist winds

inside he’s the rattan
of storm bent trees
soft bones sinking into fern
blanched stone
hardly a touch
from the breath of his feet
forged in earth
as the land falls below

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© Sue Hardy-Dawson

 

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Posted in A to Z Blog Challenge 2018

H is for Children’s Poet and Illustrator Sue Hardy-Dawson, #AtoZChallenge #ZtoA

Posted on by Liz Brownlee

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Sue Hardy-Dawson

Sue Hardy-Dawson is a Yorkshire born poet, artist, and illustrator, and has been widely published in children’s poetry anthologies. She had worked with children for over twenty years. She enjoys visiting schools and has provided workshops for the Prince of Wales Foundation for Children and the Arts. Being dyslexic she takes a special interest in encouraging reluctant readers and writers. Her first solo collection, of illustrated poems, Where Zebras Go (Otter-Barry Books) was long listed for the North Somerset Teachers’ 2017 Book Award. She has a new collection of shape poems, Apes to Zebras (Bloomsbury) with Roger Stevens and Liz Brownlee. Her second solo collection If I Were Other than Myself (Troika) is due out in spring 2019. 

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Here is one of her wonderful poems with its illustration, also by Sue:

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where zebras go

 

where the amber river slows

where the alligator wallows

where the cruel acacia grows

where the hippo haunts the shallows

 

Where the sleeping lions doze

where antelope meekly swallows

where the sky and land sit close

where the trees are dark as gallows

 

Where the hot wind ebbs and flows

where the grass is coarse and fallow

where the plains grow dry as bones

where the earth is scorched and yellow

 

Where the desert soil corrodes

where the trees are parched and sallow

where vultures stoop in funeral clothes

where the clouds are looming  shadows

 

Where the dust creeps down the road

where the air is still and hollow

where mountains fall and woodlands close

where the mud is thick as tallow

 

where the elephants leave their bones

where gazelle and bison follow

where the great Sirocco blows

where the rains go, zebra goes

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© Sue Hardy-Dawson (From Where Zebras Go, Otter-Barry Books)

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Posted in International Womens Day

Poem for #InternationalWomensDay – To My Daughters, by Sue Hardy-Dawson

Posted on by Liz Brownlee

To My Daughters

Girls rejoice, I did not wish you other,
though there is so much blood from birth to birth,
and the moon’s monthly shadow, I love you.
Some say we have it easy here, some do.
At best it’s luck really. Then there’s the whole
in His own image thing. Give me a Her
sweet Mother Earth, Mother Nature, they scold
but at least they nurture. Brothers, fathers
you are still our blood sisters. Look to your
daughters, are they not both clever and so
beautiful? Do not squander such wise gifts
do not mock us, we cannot help our breasts
no more than you, your lack, remember this
even snakes have forgotten the apple.

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© Sue Hardy-Dawson 2016

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Sue’s lovely book, Where Zebras Go, Otter-Barry, can be found here.