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Storyteller - Liz Lochhead

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2K views1 page

Storyteller - Liz Lochhead

Uploaded by

datictosclombjnkth
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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AS English Language and Literature Poetry Set – Page 12

Liz Lochhead (1947- )

Storyteller (1981)

she sat down


at the scoured table
in the swept kitchen
beside the dresser1 with its cracked delft.2
And every last crumb of daylight was salted away.3

No one could say the stories were useless


for as the tongue clacked
five or forty fingers stitched
corn was grated from the husk
patchwork was pieced
or the darning was done.

Never the one to slander her shiftless.


Daily sloven or spotless no matter whether
Dishwater or tasty was her soup.
To tell the stories was her work.
It was like spinning,
gathering thin air to the singlest strongest
thread. Night in
she’d have us waiting, held
breath, for the ending we knew by heart.

And at first light


as the women stirred themselves to build the fire
as the peasant’s feet felt for clogs
as thin grey washed over flat fields
the stories dissolved in the whorl4 of the ear
but they
hung themselves upside down
in the sleeping heads of the children
till they flew again
in the storytellers night.

1
dresser: kitchen shelves displaying dishes
2
delft: old earthenware
3
salted away: scrupulously stored
4
whorl: coiled form

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