Forza Zine is a beautiful and thoughtful publication, put together by my very good friend Rory Porter in Glasgow. The first issue is a collection of words and pictures centred around the themes of home, place, space and exile. I am pleased to have one of my poems, Times and Places i included in it and illustrated by the wonderful Liepa Kuraite.
Times and Places How odd that you wake up with the man you love in a friend’s flat, but because of your dreams he seems different and then once he’s gone their flat is sad and cold? and you feel sad for them and the way their toilet is discoloured. Then, you think you’re walking to Brixton but you end up in Clapham, which is just as grim as places like Moreton from your childhood and you think you’ll never get to Brixton but then things become comforting, and old and to do with trains. This day could be happening at any time from 1990 to now, anywhere between Birkenhead and here and it’s been 17 years to the day that your brother was born And you soothe yourself that that wasn’t so long ago, But why? As if you could get back there, as if you’d want to.
Catherine Madden 