Heather Trickey’s professional expertise was in social science, her research area including (among other things) public health policy intervention.
She was also a poet contending with a life-threatening illness, as well as an open water swimmer. It was her pride and joy to take to the sea, all year round. And here’s her first, urgently compiled collection. These are true poems, uncompromising and crystal clear. There’s undoubtedly sadness here, but also playfulness and spiritual strength.
Heather died in July 2021. Her poems remain.
Pobble
After I leaked hot tears onto the radiotherapy bed
and the nurse said she would have liked to give me a hug but couldn’t,
I swung by our local patch of water.
This is the Channel. And I am the Pobble,
recklessly dabbling my toes
having already removed my paper mask.
A friend once sat hereabouts and sang a song to the Severn.
Brown/blue, two things can be true. Right now it looks
like sparkling shit. This poem is not about Pobbles
and it will not win prizes.
