Apart from my acting work this month, I have also managed to get some other creative work published. The first is a poem, Shallow Grave in the River Gipping, published on YouTube (Black Shadow Lit) this month, and inspired in a workshop and talk by the writer James Jenkins author of Parochial Pigs and Sun-Bleached Scarecrows along with other excellent stories.
Shallow Grave in the River Gipping by Virgina Betts
Reeds, sharper than knives
fail to conceal
a fifty year old Finefare trolley
sunk to rust like a relic from another age;
insinuating hundreds of ordinary lives;
passing through a thousand pairs of busy hands;
carrying counter-sliced cheese
and tins of spam,
before Marathons were Snickers,
and Spangles and Space-Dust littered the land.
To end here.
Unceremoniously dumped
by a couple of smacked-up punks
one night after a shopping spree
fifty years ago;
when I pushed him, and he pushed me,
just for a laugh,
and everything was free.
And seeing it rusting there,
its bones protruding, stark and bare
from that stagnant pool of filth,
I wonder what became of him;
and if he, too
took the undignified slide into oblivion,
half-sunk in a shallow grave;
all that shining kinetic potential arrested;
dulled, and silenced
by time.
The second piece I have had published this month is the re-publication of ‘Gifted,’ my autobiographical piece exploring Neurodiversity. This time I recorded it and it has been released on Yorick Radio.
Gifted, by Virginia Betts Click on this link to listen!
To follow is an interview and then some of my poetry, which I have also recorded myself. I look forward to more chats on Yorick, and maybe a chance to be a voice actor for a story or two!
Virginia Betts 