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Di Slaney
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the poet
Di Slaney lives in Nottinghamshire, England, where she runs livestock sanctuary Manor Farm Charitable Trust and independent poetry publisher Candlestick Press. She was the winner of The Plough Poetry Prize 2022, and has had her poetry broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Di's poems have been published and anthologised widely, as well as highly commended by both The Forward Prizes and the Bridport Prize. She is the author of two poetry collections: Reward for Winter and Herd Queen.
the poems
Creation
In the beginning there was a farmhouse without
a field, and a woman and a man without
children. The man was content but the woman
wanted. The old farmhouse knew, it had always
known what the people who lived in it wanted,
although most wouldn't listen. This woman listened.
She heard the house breathe her thirst through
its beams, wear her desire into its scuffed flags.
She smelled its loss when wind spat ancient
soot down the chimney, saw how every spring
wildgreen crept a little closer to the back door.
So the farmhouse and the woman made a pact,
a promise without words. They sealed the bargain
with palmpress to wood, flesh on oak. She proved
her faith first, reclaimed the land though it wept
scars of rubbish when it rained. The woman
marked the field with scent and sticks, walked it
over and over till she knew the pits and folds like
her own body in the dark. The farmhouse waited,
humming on a frequency only she could hear.
That first winter, with planting done and everything
suspended, she doubted the bargain. The cold
seemed to freeze out good intentions, make every
possible thing one step closer to impossible. But
the house still thrummed its constant yes, and when
spring returned, and new trees perked first buds
east to face the pale sun rising, hope fluttered like
greedy sparrows on the feeder.
Diptych
i. Brick by brick
If I could lift it up and
move it, brick by brick,
I’d gladly build it all by hand
again myself, and pick
the best location here,
against these trees, back
to the wood, view facing clear
downhill towards the stack
of small red chimneys huddled
round the church, where it sat
waiting, calm, untroubled,
four hundred years, knowing that
such vigil would pay off, timbers aching
for it, stone hearth breaking.
ii. Buying it back
Fitting that this field
returns, unharmed,
now that the deal is sealed,
to where they farmed
hard living those long days
before, leaving no trace
but bones and stones, their ways
at odds with my mad pace
stuttering slowly to a crawl
along the sloping rocky track,
across the weatherweary wall
with seedlings pointing every crack,
my greedy eyes fill up with green,
buying it back, borrowing a dream.
History of a Field
Roll it back, roll it back, this greentipped scroll, this
loosetop layer, from how-it-is to how-it-used-to-be;
unplant the trees, dig up the hedge, blur out the track,
return the moat, the gate, the square of earth you see
behind the church, give sheep those other lives or
deaths, keep rolling till loose cattle stroll black
graveyards late at night, pigs begrudge their lack
of straw in tinlid huts, hayyield begets huge stacks
and roll, keep rolling while World War II Italians pick fat
fruit from applepears and sing sweet songs and trick
young localhearts with tiny matchplanes crafted
under candles in the loft, keep rolling back past all
their prayers, soil shifting, harrowed, furrowed,
shires turning, bridled, harnessed, tacked; keep
rolling – now land is wider uphilldownhill, woodside,
broadside, trees reaching overunderround, leaves
smacking heads, rumpsandtumps, the forest’s knack
to spread and swallowwhole this little patch, its
shack of small dominion, its stamp, its hearth,
your heart. Stop rolling. Fold it back, fold it back.
Publishing credits
Creation / Diptych: Reward for Winter (Valley Press)
History of a Field: winner of The Plough Poetry Prize 2022
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