Diana Hendry
Poet and Children's Author
Poetry and Poems
Second Wind
A collection of poems on ageing by Diana, Douglas Dunn and Vicki Feaver (Saltire Society and Scottish Poetry Library. 2015).
The Seed-Box Lantern: New & Selected Poems
(Mariscat Press 2013)
Diana writes: The Seed-box Lantern contains a pick of poems from my five other collections and from about forty years of work. All my main preoccupations are here – family, pianos, Crete, swimming, the psalms. I want to say ‘love’, ‘wonder’ and ‘mystery’. A critic (Sally Baker) reviewing the book in The North, said ‘she writes about ordinary life with warmth and wisdom’. I’m pleased by warmth and wisdom, of course, then pondered ‘ordinary life’. It’s ordinary life that is most extraordinary.
‘Diana Hendry’s poetry has a wonderful sense of the author’s voice, dark and bitterly sweet at the same time, like high-grade chocolate.’ Janice Galloway.
Poetry Collections
Making Blue, Peterloo Poets, 1995
“...the fresh eye that shines in her children’s novels ...is even more alert in these heart-searching for grown-up.”
William Scammell, The Independent on Sunday.
Borderers, Peterloo Poets, 2001
“Hendry’s poems are a vibrant collections, as vivid and various as a room full of Picassos.”
Sylvia Hill.
Twelve Lilts, Psalms & Responses, Mariscat Press 2003
“...a warmth and sense of deep affection in every line" Amos Oz.
Sparks! (with Tom Pow), Mariscat Press 2005
“The record of a creative correspondence between two friends – a creative writing source book.”
Late Love and Other Whodunnits,
Peterloo/Mariscat Press, 2008
“a remarkable eye for the truth and the ability to see the otherness of the very ordinary.”
U.A. Fanthrope.
Other work:
Diana has written the libretto for The Pied Piper, a new composition by Edinburgh composer John Mortimer
For children
No Homework Tomorrow,
Glowworm Books 2003
“...the kind of looking which will not only raise awareness but inform children’s own writing.’ Jill Pirrie, TES
Poems United: A Commonwealth Anthology,
(As editor with Hamish Whyte) Scottish Poetry Library and Black & White Publishing, 2007
“... a superb resource for teaching any age group about poetry and other cultures.” TES
Shortlisted for the CLPE Award
Diana’s poetry books are available from Mariscat Press, Amazon and Peterloo Poets (see links page)
Anthologies
Diana is represented in A Shame to Miss (Corgi); Kin (Polygon & SPL); New Writing Scotland 26 (ASLS) 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (Luath), 100 Favourite Scottish Love Poems, (Luath); Read Me (Macmillan) Swings & Shadows (Julia MacRae Books); The Poetry Book Society Anthology 3; The Thing That Matters Most; (Scottish Poetry Library); The Works 5 (Macmillan); The Young Oxford Book of Poems (OUP) and many others.
Magazines & Journals
Poems by Diana have appeared in the following magazines and journals:
Ambit, Bananas, Chapman, Causeway/Cabhsair, Chapman, Critical Survey, Critical Quarterly, The Dark Horse, Encounter, Envoi, Gaelforce, The Guardian, The Herald, The London Magazine, Mandeville Press, New Poetry, Nonesuch, The North, Markings, Mslexia, Odyssey, Prospice, Poetry Chicago, Poetry Matters, Poetry Review, The Spectator, Smiths Knoll, The Sunday Independent, Thumbscrew, Writing Women.
Awards for poetry
First prize Housman Society Poetry Competition, 1994
Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship (with Hamish Whyte) 2007
A poem by Diana has been chosen for the Scottish Poetry Library's list of best Scottish poems in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2014
Poems
Dressing Mother
I help roll her stockings over her feet,
then up to her knees. She's managed her dress
but I free her fingers from the sleeves.
Before the mirror she rouges her cheeks,
combs her thin curls, hands me a bow.
It's scarlet and goes on a ribbon I thread
under her collar and fix with a hook.
Over an hour to dress her today.
Such an innocence stays at the nape of the neck
it fumbles my fingers. I see her binding
bands of scarlet at the ends of my plaits
and fastening the buttons at my back.
Now look - she's dressed as a child off
to some party. I straighten her scarlet bow
and don't want her to go,
don't want her to go.
From: Making Blue (Peterloo Poets)
Psalm Eighty-Eight Blues
Lord, when I’m speechless,
when something – not just sorrow
but under that – a dull, numb, nameless dreich
about the heart I hardly seem to have,
when this afflicts me,
when hope’s been cancelled,
when the pilot light of me’s put out,
when every reflex and response
has been extinguished,
send word, snowdrop, child, light.
From: Twelve Lilts: Psalms & Responses (Mariscat Press)
Big Sister’s Coming on a Visit
Clean whole house, polish shoes,
Here’s the news –
Big Sister’s coming on a visit.
Put on best dress, wait for train,
Pray no rain –
Big Sister’s coming on a visit.
Book the taxis, fly the flags,
Hide the fags –
Big Sister’s coming on a visit.
Buy up florist, shine the town,
Fetch the crown –
Big Sister’s coming on a visit.
Big Sister’s coming with big big case
Big Sister’s coming with smiley face
Big Sister’s coming with big big heart
Big Sister likes playing big big part.
Big Sister coming with little frightened soul
Big Sister nervous as new born foal
Big Sister coming with dodgy knee
Big Sister coming with bravery
Big Sister coming to visit me.
Switch the sun on, banish blues,
Here’s the news –
Big Sister’s coming on a visit.
From: Late Love & Other Whodunnits (Peterloo/Mariscat)
Abigail’s Garden
Grows children, chaos and, of course, a sapling
Apple, tiny and daring its very first blossom.
Walk past and a shock of energy’s sparked off
As if it’s in the grass or maybe fed
On Miracle Gro. So it’s no matter that
The fence is down, the gate half off – there’s
Too much growing going on to give
To everything its due. Here’s a sandpit,
Trike, a mini trampoline. Now bluebells
Have landed. No wonder next door’s clematis
Is wanting in or that old ginger cat,
Terrified of metamorphosis or worse,
Wants out. He’s bagged a patch of common
Sun-warmed pavement and is nodding off.
From: The Seed-Box Lantern: New & Selected Poems (Mariscat Press)
Watching telly with you
We could go to Paris of course
but not so often. And it might not be quite
as cosy as the sofa, the fire, our slippers,
the zapper. Sometimes mid-morning
I think about it, hankering a little like
the lovelorn do, for that evening lull,
front door locked, feet up, snugged up,
loved up and watching telly with you.
From: Second Wind (Saltire & Scottish Poetry Library)
NEW: The Watching Stair.
The Watching Stair is Diana Hendry’s first collection since The Seed-Box Lantern: New and Selected Poems of 2013.
It is a delightfully varied collection. Writing about family is one of its strengths, especially the mother daughter relationship, although there are fathers, sisters and the next two generations as well as some challenging observations on the ageing process – all adding up to a kind of oblique autobiography.
But then we’re all over the world with Chekhov, Caroline Herschel, Nigerian beggars, a digital Canada, Portobello beach, with colourful asides on flowers: cyclamen, poppies, nasturtiums. And all despatched with Hendry’s superb craft, wry humour and just the right tone. If there is an overiding theme, it is perhaps that of watching and waiting and listening
(‘one of the highest virtues’) – as in the title poem and very differently, in the powerfully apposite ‘What We’re Here For’.The train’s mournful hoot in ‘Beyond’ maybe strikes the key note – of yearning, of wanting something more, something further, something ‘beyond’.
‘...a collection of poignant, often wryly humorous and always beautifully-crafted poems that open windows on childhood and old age.’
Vicki Feaver
…accessibly, highly intelligent, wide-ranging poems that have a wonderful psychological truthfulness, particularly about the relations between mother and daughter, but then go beyond the individual situation to become a meditation on meaning in the face of mortality.’
D.M.Black
Two Poems from The Watching Stair:
The Watching Stair
The watching stair
Is where I live
I watch and listen there
For I am not a full-grown person yet.
Sometimes the stair
Is not the one that leads to bed
But is the stair inside my head.
Alert, I am intensely good at this
The watching and the listening work.
Though you might think I haven’t seen or heard
I am the brilliant spy of the grown-up world.
In years to come when you’ve forgotten,
I’ll remind you of what you did and said.
I have the detailed records in my head.
Nasturtiums
Love should be like nasturtiums
shot through with sunshine and fire,
easily available, simply exuberant.
Love should be like nasturtiums
ignoring the obvious season of spring,
waiting until the summer is almost
over then going for it, rampant
running wild, catching on.
Love should be like nasturtiums
able to flourish on the poorest soil,
useful and beautiful, happy
anywhere. Enduring, common.
Earlier Works