Our featured publication for November is Quotidian by Paul Waring, published by Yaffle Press.

‘The quotidian remains exactly that until an artist, thinker, or in this case a poet of rare
observational skill decides to highlight its most mundane features or most camouflaged citizens and begins to explore them. On reading these poems one can only conclude that Waring is a voracious, and often carnivorous, people watcher with an admirable ability to balance empathy and wit. Should you ever suspect he’s watching you be aware or be blessed.’ Brett Evans

‘I love this aptly named collection of beautifully crafted and musical poetry. Here are the everyday lives of the lovers, the lost and the lonely, elevated by Waring’s profound empathy and tenderness. A gently humourous, minor key of a collection; not just the wind, but the whole city in my face’ Deborah Alma

‘Paul’s poetry is strikingly concise and muscular. Time and again he manages to compress themes and ideas that lesser poets would take pages to expound into simple looking stanzas. These poems will reward the reader who takes time with them, who unwraps their complexity one layer at a time. A rare talent whose work will stay with you.’ David J. Costello

‘Whether it’s shabby bedsits, people watching on the train or the sanctuary of an old man’s shed, this aptly titled collection reveals Waring’s knack of showing us the beauty and rueful humour of everyday life. The poems in Quotidian are sad, funny, wistful or tender; above all they are always kind and true.’ Ben Banyard

On Bedsits

Three flights up
threadbare arthritic stairs
in damp stale air
a vase-less jumble
of nicotined furniture
sepia-tinted peeling walls
and clogged lungs of carpet.

Ill-fitting dentures
of sash windows rattle
as shivering lips
of curtain beg warmth
from a one-bar electric fire
that eats fifty pence pieces.

Cracked elbows of PVC sofa
sprout corn-coloured foam
tangerine acrylic of seats
singed and stained by careless
ciggies and TV dinners.

On a stripped bed a sagging
mattress reads like a DNA history
of real and imagined sex.

‘Tomorrow’s World’ on a grainy
black and white TV peddles
dreams of futures
in a language
we’ve yet to learn.

Previously published on Amaryllis

Water Stories

Most days a name that coats tongues —
a conversation crumb, ever-present on lips,
that might be the story of whoosh-spray
and wiper blades, a child’s bank holiday
face pressed up against car window. Or
the desert wanderer, divining what never
arrives, thirst starved like a wished kiss.
Timpani summer thunder, flocked cloud
shot through, throats stung by gunsmoke —
rain brought down in fathomless language
verbed as mizzle, sile or pelt; steeped fabric
of mountainside sheep or stubborn seagull
on chimney duty, wings batoned tight. A
pell mell race past waterfall, church bell
volleys down to burble in lake and stream.
Or stampede: news of flood spewed from
reservoir bowl or swollen sea, its laughter
breaching promenade walls. Rain fists
you might see batter streets, bouncing
up in apostrophes. Or new snow; the child
in us clinging to its powder-silent ballet.

Short-listed in 2019 Welshpool Poetry Competition

The Lady Next Door Is Lost

again, summons me from sleep with
familiar bangs and shouts in early hours.
Stands stooped, confused half-smile
and pleads: where am I? Artist eyes
now fixed into haunted stares. They
say for some the brain stops knitting
neurons, instead starts to unpick itself
row by row, stitches and seams slowly
disconnected from the here and now
until all-that-matters is out of reach.
I escort her home and if, over tea,
ask, let’s say, about her wedding day
photo in a frame she’ll light up again,
paint fine brushstroke detail: pearl
white taffeta gown, father’s words
in the car, that first dance. But next,
another half-smile; she’s certain I’m
the son who never visits, laughs off
any suggestion I only live next door.

Previously published in Prole

Paul Waring’s poetry has been published in print journals and online magazines including Prole, Strix, Here Comes Everyone, Amaryllis, Algebra of Owls, Three Drops From A Cauldron, Clear Poetry and Atrium. His work has also appeared in poetry anthologies such as Watch The Birdie (Beautiful Dragons, 2018), Well Dam (Beautiful Dragons, 2019) and Whirlagust (Yaffle Press, 2019). He was runner-up in the 2019 Yaffle Prize and commended and shortlisted in the 2019 Welshpool Poetry Competition. As a planning team member of this year’s inaugural Wirral Poetry Festival, Paul created and co-facilitated several events and workshops. His debut pamphlet Quotidian was published this year by Yaffle Press.
‘Quotidian’ is available for purchase via Paul’s website: https://waringwords.blog