Nine Arches Press presents…

Isobel Dixon

Self-Portrait in Sweet Woodruff

Tumbled in fractious, scratchy grief,

let me lie in the undergrowth,

feel sorrow pass from me into the earth.

Hold, receiving soil, and give –

my aching shoulder, this eroding spine,

the bruiséd cage in which these organs heave.

I don’t know how or why they carry on,

except they do, and bear the weight

of me with them. Two roads diverged,

and I lay down, for what else could I do.

Sink to my knees and stretch out long,

heart-tattered, in a lap of salving green.

Let braver travellers venture on. Let me

succumb and dream among the leaves

as if I were a child again and no-one

there to call me in. I saw a painting once

like this, of ink on silk: damp emerald,

a shaded world. The trees rise silently,

and a skein of weasel threads the white-

starred forest floor: a weasel paused

among fishmint, wild strawberries. This is

that pause. A forest bath, soul-tunnelling.

A time to sleep among the beetles

in a cloak of rain and fragrant asterids

and wake, May-dazed, to a softer path.

An apple-green music, pale vanilla light,

a cup of stem-steeped early summer wine.

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa where her debut collection, Weather Eye, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. Further collections A Fold in the Map and The Tempest Prognosticator, which J.M. Coetzee described as "a virtuoso collection", have been re-issued by Nine Arches Press. Her work has been recorded for the Poetry Archive and she often collaborates with artists, writers, and composers. Bearings was published by Nine Arches Press in 2016. In the same year Mariscat published a pamphlet, The Leonids. A Whistling of Birds contains many nature-focused poems and is due from Nine Arches Press in 2023.

Nine Arches Press has over one hundred poetry publications, with titles shortlisted for prizes including the Forward Best First Collection, the TS Eliot Poetry Prize, the Ted Hughes Award, the Michael Murphy Prize, and the Polari Prize. They also produce Under the Radar magazine, a year round programme of workshops and events, and offer writer development and mentoring opportunities.

Isobel's books are available from ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections