Frances-Ann Norton: Poetry

Mirror Land: Response to Gaffney's 'The Good, The bad and The Ugly' sculpture. Lone girl at an Irish Zoo, how she has set herself apart. She is on a table which rests on a mirror. Claude Glass, a Black Mirror, used for painting landscapes in the 18 th  C. Are the landscapes memory landscapes? Or Ingold Taskscapes? 1965 treetop canopy, a park with a cenotaph. A lot of sky, populated by trees. This hand mirror is Cleopatra’s Obsidian highly polished mirror. Not a true reflector black stone of magnetic depth A wonder. The magnetic depth of prismatic black flecked with quartz. The contemplative depth is much more about soul space. A  Psychological fingerprint. Because it is not a true reflection It gives space for infinity Mirror To look in it is to gaze on the infinite, the sublime. Not Newman’s sublime although I think I understand the Abstract Expressionism’s love of black. Ad Reinhardt, Malevich, Rauschen...

Yellow Bunny Frances was born in 1969 at Leeds Maternity hospital, (this is going somewhere, I’ve got a plan honestly) and was given a yellow rabbit by a lady from Ann’s jewellery evening class. (Those ladies loved mum.) Ann had two significant car crashes in 1968 and 1969 and had broken her pelvis and back. Right before the birth she had a blow out and flipped the car right over on the way home from Harrogate. Ann says her shoes were stolen while she was unconscious. (This is relevant It’s all part of the story). [Sometimes a story is slow in the coming like Frances was being born.] Ann suffered terribly at the birth Still recovering from her injuries Ann was unable to sit up or hold her new baby. Frances and Yellow Bunny went on a trip to Huddersfield, with Uncle Bobby, Aunty Susan and Cousins Philip, Janet and Rachel. Hours, days, weeks, months went by. Who can tell how slowly of fast they passed. She was a baby. {Not yet conscious o...

In the Toy Cupboard. I am a roll in the pocket of your great coat. I am among the toys in a big cupboard. Yellow rabbit Marigold. Loads of monkeys in a bucket. Miekkel the Nurse Doll. The tiny child’s basket chair with a fluffy red cushion. The tiny white varnished grand piano with the tinkely notes. I’m so small. I can get right into the toy cupboard and hide and no one will find me. 

Dream Poem 106; Pull a Corner I never wanted to enter conversations in shop doorways. Just pull a corner out and I can do the rest myself Just open the door on this a little bit and I can do it.