Margaret‘s 1st poetry collection ‘Fording The Stream’ appeared Sept 2017 under the pen name Jessica De Guyat.
She was shortlisted for the Bangor Literary Festival and Crowvus poetry prizes in 2018 and her poems have appeared online, in journals and anthologies, most recently Hedgehog Poetry Press, The Blue Nib, Impspired and forthcoming in Sarasvati.
May 2020 saw the publication of her memoir of childhood ‘The Road to Cleethorpes Pier,’ a Haibun fusion of prose and poetry.
In July 2020 she won Hedgehog Press’ Full Fat collection competition and ‘Where Flora Sings,’ was published November 2020. Earth Magicke was published by impspired in 2021.
Margaret leads a women’s poetry group in Nottinghamshire and performs regularly at open mic events in person and online.
Wolf moon haunts after a night at the Palais
A tiger prowls the city streets as muffled clocks strike midnight black. Clouds in the blotting paper sky seep pools of hidden fantasy. I walk a concrete wilderness; villas with hollow eyes glare down, turrets zoom from gothic pasts. On Gallows Hill a scaffold looming through the rough-sewn cloak of night…. Last bus gone, taxis on strike. I scurry home, a galleon in full sail, my Jimmy Choos hammering nails into the slippery cobblestones. Beware the bad moon rising! that’s what the locals said… Just stupid talk, the locals having a laugh? I plead for fair winds, following seas, hope for a tidal wave to carry me home, startling at every sudden sound: fighting toms on cracked tin roofs, drink cans whistling past my feet. But…. just in case, I grasp my keys and phone, thumb hovering over 9.
An Angel’s Take on City Blues
My wings strike brutalist atrocities, do battle with the sprawl of concrete jungles, eviscerate the drone of traffic blare. In homage to Eartha Kitt my lungs draw in blue breath, laments to filter out this humdrum city-life indifference. My eyes throb from the stabbing flash, the constant noise of neon blitz, the ritz and glitz of theatre lights on show. Sometimes my ears catch floating tunes that sing to me from uber-cool apartments, voices like gentle thunder on the shore. My tongue would spew out dragon flames, ignite the bars of prison cells, burn down bleak station yards, refurbished cotton mills. Oh yes, I’d bring a new Jerusalem, restore the verve of urban life, wash pavements whistle-clean again…if only it were in my power! My wings strike brutalist atrocities, do battle with the sprawl of concrete jungles, eviscerate the drone of traffic blare….. A hopeless blues song on repeat.
impspired 