Antoinette Rock
Antoinette lives in Cavan. Her poems have appeared in Revival, The London Reader, Windows Authors & Artists Introduction Series No. 9, The Moth, North West Words, Poetry in Motion (N.I.), Boyne Berries, Lagan On-line, A New Ulster, Skylight 47, The Blue Nib and other contemporary publications. Her poetry has been commended in the Happenstance Poetry Competition 2017 and she was also commended in the Westport Poetry Prize 2017.
1974
Her grandmother was convinced
her soup would heat your bones.
Pearl barley, swollen overnight
to become transparent.
Freshly dug carrots,
thin bright orange discs to crunch;
heavy globes of onion quartered,
plucked parsley from their allotment,
thin slices of Comber spuds.
A Belfast bap to dunk.
Net curtains that stuck to the
steamed up windows,
Black Diamond coalfire blazing
the pulley clothesline stretched,
sagging with damp shirts.
November traditions,
Like the names of the faithful departed
scraps wrapped in pink
ten-shilling notes
slipped into the Canon’s hand.
And I, a young one,
taking it all in, eager to consume
everything,
learned it nourished the soul.
