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| Since January 26, 2004 |
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| Poems from forthcoming first sequence 'Mill Hill' |
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| MILL HILL SUMMER My mother rips the glow From the lightning bug And paints our faces With her florescent fingers. We watch with round eyes Waiting, still as stagnate pools, For our marks - Cheeks puffed Breath bated. Crickets' cantos Ricochet off trees. One stripe Down the cheek Warm gut glow. Rough, yarn-worn fingers Press my face I wait for the next. All the mill hill houses, White and straight in a row, Watch and know: Within their walls Wars are growing. But tonight We three little Indians Escape the scalping And dance in the dusk Glowing. Molly Freeman |
| WHITE CHRISTMAS Behind the gutted trailer, I rode my new bike, Stopped at the sight of strewn trash. I kicked my kickstand into the soft grass. Potholders, pots and pans, Pencils, receipts, telephone bills And red Christmas garland torn in half. A kitchen drawer, upside down. I moved to sit on it to save my jeans From the wet red mud. I kicked something under my feet, Lifted it, and then sat. A black Santa Painted on plywood With a hole and a bit of string. First thought: He's just covered in coal, Soot from the chimney. But then it rang through me Like Presbyterian bells - The blacks have their Santa, too. And he's black - Just like their God - But always painted pale. And I stood wanting to give Christmas And all my whiteness back. Molly Freeman |
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| Molly Freeman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1971. Her heritage is both Ulster-Scots and Cherokee. She was raised in McAdenville - Christmas Town, USA (the Mill Hill) until she was 12. Read More .... |
| ... Other poems adopt a more humorous approach in response to comical images such as the 'Tired Child' of Louis le Brocquy's painting. Molly Freeman eloquently translates the visual into the written by becoming the voice of the art. Her reaction to the child involves actually becoming childlike herself. This is evident when she writes: I, just a child, Can do nothing but grasp (ll.7-8) The combination of the painting and poem refreshingly brings about one's own return to childhood. Maggie Freeman |
| TIRED CHILD Pin-wheel spins As his hot breath blows I, like a baby, Can do nothing but gasp. Merry-go-round turns As his hard arm throws I, just a child, Can do nothing but grasp I cannot breathe He will not stop You laugh You laugh Molly Freeman |
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| From Fortnight Magazine - June 2002 No 405 Review of A Conversation Piece: Poetry & Art 'Searching For the Light Behind the Frame' |