The Belfast Review Team | 29 February, 2024
Welcome to Week 2 of our Spring Blog. Each week we will feature a handful of new creative works by artists, photographers, writers, poets, and song writers. Different days of the week highlight different creative forms: Feast Your Eyes Sundays (art, photography), Wordy Tuesday (fiction, flash, nonfiction), and Rhythm-Verse Thursday (poetry, song lyrics).
This week we're exploring the theme of 'Improvisation.' It's a deceptively simple skill – you have to know the rules to break the rules. Along with that it takes confidence, perspective, and most importantly, freedom. The freedom to think, feel, and transform the established and predictable into the new and unexpected.
In other words – it's all that jazz.
Featured poet: Ren Pike
In keeping with our 'improvisation' theme we are pleased to include this poem set in St John's, Newfoundland (the oldest city in North America). There are many poems about cities, and as a genre we love them. The hyper specific details that are at once a portrait of a particular place in a particular time, but also evoke the universal experience of moving through a city. What draws the eye, what sparks the mind, has both randomness and rhythm. Movement and modernity, and yet the still, quiet moments of the human experience.
As a special bonus, this poem also includes hyperlinks, giving some additional historical background to St John's. It's a fascinating tour.
Join us.
St. John's, Newfoundland: Palimpsest
REN PIKE
graffiti repeats itself
'cross walls
deep-water grey
beneath The RoomsÂ
hard truths know
quick-change
shivering in bitter cold June
you, saying all the says
glad I brought these gloves
stitch-worried, hell-worn
hands not unlike our faces
forty years running
these gangplanks
between church and state
all plummeting hillsides
dandelion foot-tall
thickets green and mossy
walking Rawlins Cross
wind cutting us to size
in Mercy's eye, lies
the Basilica
unrepentant
Hail Mary pass
to open mouthed, saints
freshly scrubbed, façade
and grounds, immaculate
now for sale, call
AUTHOR BIO
Ren Pike grew up in Newfoundland. Through sheer luck, she was born into a family who understood the exceptional value of a library card. Her work has appeared in Grain, Cutbow Quarterly, and Riddle Fence.  https://pike.headstaller.com
Special thanks to the poet for trusting us with her work.
Thanks to all of you readers for reading! Be sure to like, follow, and share.
We have one more post coming up this week, poetry by Brandon Shane. Be sure to check out this weeks other posts Feast Your Eyes Sunday (25 Feb) with photography from Gaynor Kane. And, Wordy Tuesday (27 Feb) with fiction from Ankit Raj Ojha.
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