Oafs & Asses
Inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s description of the pupils she taught for three years at Roe Head School
Oafs and asses stop me writing with their doltish scrawl of pluperfect subjunctives & spilt
infinitives,
My head is splintered away from Zamorna with his charismatic whiskers & powdered blue
eye,
To sniffing chits & clicking boots,
My roots call me back through Luddendenfoot & galloping brook to the hills that will hold
my name.
Now, I am tamed, riven peculiar by shrill squawks & spurious bells which knell my fury &
quell the extraordinary,
Burrs of lurid lurching words which fork the insipid scurry to learn,
Hooked to a system of maiden aunts who comb me free of liberty.
infinitives,
My head is splintered away from Zamorna with his charismatic whiskers & powdered blue
eye,
To sniffing chits & clicking boots,
My roots call me back through Luddendenfoot & galloping brook to the hills that will hold
my name.
Now, I am tamed, riven peculiar by shrill squawks & spurious bells which knell my fury &
quell the extraordinary,
Burrs of lurid lurching words which fork the insipid scurry to learn,
Hooked to a system of maiden aunts who comb me free of liberty.
November / December, 2022
Emma Conally-Barklem is a yogi, writer and poet based in North Yorkshire, England. She writes on nature, mental health, grief, social justice, family and wellbeing. Her poetry has been published in Free Verse Revolution Literary Magazine, Black In White Community Collection Anthology, Please See Me Online Literary Journal, Aurum Journal, Sunday Mornings At The River, Ey Up! Bent Key Publishing Summer Anthology, Tipping the Scales Literary Journal, Small Leaf Press, Super Present Magazine, Harvest Anthology, QuillKeepers Press and ‘I Won’t Leave Quietly’ chapbook in Her Space Journal. Conally-Barklem completed a summer residency at the Brontë Parsonage Museum and was named one of Ilkley Poetry Festival’s New Northern Poets 2022. Her first collection, The Ridings, has been accepted for traditional chapbook publication by Bent Key Publishing in March 2023. Her yoga and grief memoir, You Can’t Hug A Butterfly: Love, Loss & Yoga, has been accepted for traditional publication by QuillKeepers Press in 2024.
Art: Elephants. Oil on canvas. T. Aguilera.