Wooldridge, Patricia

England, (contemporary)

When Pigs Chew Stones

  1. The pigs chew
  2. on a field of stones,
  3.  
  4. dribble pebbles
  5. behind the shore,
  6.  
  7. their pursed mouths
  8. full of clink.
  9.  
  10. Dun light folds over
  11. a bowl of sky,
  12.  
  13. my feet
  14. pock, pock,
  15. the beach,
  16.  
  17. trailing me.
  18.  
  19. Ten weeks
  20. since my father died and already
  21. gaps –
  22.  
  23. how did he choose my name?
  24.  
  25. In the garden,
  26. the hover fly between us,
  27.  
  28. what was he thinking?
  29.  
  30. The pigs and I
  31. riddling sea,
  32.  
  33. the sky
  34. full of holes.

© Patricia Wooldridge. First Place winning poem at the ninth Ragged Raven Press Poetry Competition (2006). Used as the title of Ragged Raven’s Ninth Annual Poetry Anthology: When Pigs Chew Stones. Snitterfield, UK: Ragged Raven Press (2007).

About the Poet:

Patricia Helen Wooldridge, England, (contemporary), is a poet and educator who specializes in the teaching of poetry and has published widely in many poetry journals since 1996. Wooldridge has taught at Portsmouth University since 1994 beginning in the School of Education teaching on the PGCE program for secondary English Teachers.

Wooldridge completed her creative writing doctorate exploring the relationship between poetry and painting in 2008. In 2010 she left university employment in order to concentrate on her writing. She has a BA and MA in English Literature (London University) and a D.Phil in Creative Writing (Sussex University). [DES-09/19]