'gems hidden within our physicality'

 Will Parfitt has generously left this review on Amazon.

In this slim volume of quality poetry, Cora Greenhill bares her soul through engaging honestly with the minutiae of life until something more than the obvious emerges, poems rich and sensual in life energies. A continuously clever use of words illuminates her life and the reader's experience in sharing her deeply connected vision. Her last poem ends 'Pelts are rent, ribs cracked, tusks splintered,/We trample the carnage of ourselves' - yes, but so to uncover the gems hidden within our physicality, and bridge the imaginary divide between soul and body. Support first rate poetry, support a first class poet, read this book!  

Will Parfitt, author and publisher.

Appreciations made legible!

Here are the appreciations of The Point of Waking  from the back of the book!

Cora Greenhill’s poems explore the wild places and natural world of Crete in a deliciously sensual and lived way. Her suggestive vocabulary and cultural accretions energises moments of being and life’s cycles to produce a pungent and elemental poetry.  Here the raw and cooked are nudged along through nuanced and succulent language. The poems probe, elevate and mark boundaries. They possess a wonderfully grounded quality. They are at once anthropological, physical and magical, and a delight to read. 

David Caddy, poet, critic and Editor of Tears in the Fence

Reading The Point of Waking,  I felt myself uncurl, tensions warming away

in the pleasure of lyric language. This is writing as a garden of delights, lines moving musically from scene to scene, resplendent with colour and scent. From the rich, earthy evocation of Crete, as it drifts slowly towards modernity, yet remains still languorous and mysterious, still charged with spiritual presence, to the tender observation of children playing with danger in urban England, the poetry takes you on a journey of the body, offering new understanding of place through sensuous description. 

Rose Flint, poet

I can’t describe how excited I am about Cora Greenhill’s poetry. It’s not just that it’s good – it’s good in the way I really want poetry to be good – a rich and sensual poetry with blood and earth in it, physical and grounded, but also thoughtful and deeply felt. 

Elizabeth Rimmer, poet

The Point of Waking

The books have arrived and I think they look great! You can get your copy(ies) direct from me for £8 (+£1pp) Just email me at cora@thirteenthmoon.co.uk and I'll post straight away.

Breakthrough time!

In the last  month I've had a collection accepted for publication by Oversteps Books! www.overstepsbooks.com It will be called The Point of Waking and will come out later this year. Working with an editor to design a book is quite a learning curve!
I've also had a poem chosen by Penguin for their upcoming anthology The Poetry of Sex, due out in January, AND my first piece (prose) to be published in the next MsLexia! Am I on a roll? I hope so!

Bare Hands: Departure Lounge

Bare Hands had a competition for poems and photos on the subject of Bare Hands!
This poem was Highly Commended and is on their website, which is full of intriguing poems and artwork - have a look! http://barehandscompetition2013.tumblr.com/

Departure Lounge

I’d tucked the last of our green figs

in a thermal mug in your hand luggage

with these fingers now linked

to your working hands

that fix things: locks on gates

the windsurf sail, the cistern.

They played on my skin this morning

teasing out tension

between my shoulder blades.

And your eyes that look

at all of me

and your tongue…

that time when I wept

with self-loathing

it licked the salt from the wound.

The queue for the check-in is long.

You tell me to go but I stay.

It’s hard to find conversation.

When you reach the corner of the stairs 

I text, ‘I missed you first.’

A Knowledge of Meadows

This poem was written after a walk near Dronfield in Derbyshire. It has gone through various versions but I am very happy that it has now been published in Artemispoetry Issue 10, selected by the wonderful Anne Cluysenaar. Artemispoetry is a bi-annual magazine of women's poetry, articles and reviews published by Second Light in London - I love it!

A Knowledge of Meadows

Site of Special Scientific Interest,

a sign had said, evoking fences, 

closure, inspections. Not this

damp muddle where air is heavy

with the breath of meadowsweet,

unruly above betony, darts of orchid,

sparks of ragged robin,

hoary willow herb, bloody spears

of sorrel, rock roses: a holy hash

of Flora’s things, half hidden

by high hazel already speckled

with pea green clusters

the milk teeth of nuts.

That’s a native small-leaved maple

and an airy space of aspens whispers

over a hollow at the bottom of the field.

I feel a marsh of past meadows

in me; shift through mist to bogs

of marigolds and lady’s smock,

and rushes we’d peel all the way 

to school, not knowing that before 

schools began, their wicks

lit the lamps of history. 

Now, framed in a gap in hawthorn,

lake bright, pale as bulbs:

a group of ponies, all the colours

of summer clouds. Their backs are bare

horizons, their bellies, globes. 

Muzzles lift curiously, manes

raise question marks as they swerve

towards me, and noses nuzzle me,

hot with scientific interest.

The Living Line

The next meeting of The Living Line women's poetry group is on Sat August 10th. Come and enjoy writing and reading poetry on a summer's day in Grindleford! We have room for a couple more women writers - level of experience not important. Get in touch!

The Living Line - poetry group for women - 

next meeting On Monday 27th May, 11.30 - 4pm

We're looking at eco-poetry by women, with lots of writing and feedback time.
For details, click on 'teaching'. 
2 spaces available. Call me 01433 630759