Dad's Slideshow

Thumprint no.3

Di Slaney

• Publisher: Stonewood Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781910413067
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Dad's slideshow is a sequence charting a family's ancestry over a lifetime. Di Slaney's deft and evocative poems are testimony to what survives long after the events recorded in a family album. She writes movingly about relationships, tracing links to the past which inform our understanding of the present.

DAD’S SLIDESHOW

It’s nearly a year ago since we

sat in the dark together, blinking

at each white flash, all of us thinking

back, me catching sight of his face

CLICK

as we sat in the dark together, blinking

with surprise to see ourselves, looking

back, me catching sight of his face

and the tears glistening at the corners

CLICK

so surprised to see ourselves, looking

just like the children do now,

and tears glistening at the corners

give away how much this jolts us

CLICK

just like the children do now

when they think they see themselves,

don’t understand how they jolt us,

this circle of faces endlessly repeating

CLICK

when they think they see themselves

in old fashioned clothes they never wore,

this face circle endlessly repeating

in strange places they’ve never been

CHANGE CASSETTE

in strange clothes they never wore

but have a memory of somehow,

old fashioned places they’ve never been

yet know about, tell stories about

CLICK

they have a memory, somehow,

of all the things we did together

and know about, tell stories about

the tractor, the paper hats, halloween

CLICK

all the things we did together,

that only we can remember

like paper hats, halloween, the tractor

and the pictures pile up around us

CLICK

that we can only remember

they pull us in, bring us to this point

while the pictures pile up around us

and the tears keep us silently blinking

CLICK

and bring us, pull us to one point

all of us just a white flash, thinking

while tears keep us silent, and blinking.

It’s nearly a year ago.

CHANGE CASSETTE

JULY 1976

Sardined on the sofa, we were too busy

laughing at the date on the frame and

the snow on the hillside to see that dark

had happened here. The fencepost circle

was uneven, too many tall uprights to be

the usual sheep corral, and the way

shadows chased down gullies to loiter

in corners and crannies flickered

round the edges of my mind like some

half-remembered dread. The puffs

of sheep distracted, heads cropping low,

eyes averted, no happy gangs just solitary

oldies with worn teeth and tattered fleece,

remnants left behind to tidy up. And

though the sun was trying to break out,

the leaf pattern cast right to left was off;

too long, too trembling, too late. A few

dips and hollows in the grass like sucked

out graves, white angles...

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Dedication
• Contents
• On the Forestry Commission track
• Dad’s slideshow
• July 1976
• Stitches
• The female side
• All of them
• Dead spit
• No laughing matter
• Close up
• Lucky red
• Empty pool
• Of wolves
• West of Dolgellau
• His arms around her
• We never went to France
• Bareback
• Sarah and the chickens
• Aberangell
• The ridiculous
• Three-ply
• O brother
• That water
• Who she is
• The bridge