Many thanks to Scarlet Tiger Press for including my poem 'My son asks what mother tongue means' in their beautiful 'Stonework' anthology.
'A poetry anthology on the theme of stone, assembled following our open submission call during the summer, and illustrated by lithographer Helen Rollinson. Stone is ancient and enduring, yet it’s also a shapeshifter when viewed within larger spans of time. It is airborne as dust, liquid as magma, and contains millennia.
Unlike rock, stone often suggests some human shaping has taken place, whether carved or arranged into monuments, chipped into tools, built into homes. It carries stories of extraction and transformation - from quarries and mines to the gemstone trade.
Writing about stone lets us stand at the meeting point of deep time and human time - to see the vast geological forces shaping our world, and the marks and memories left by those who walked the earth before us.' A pleasure to be included.
