RAINE GEOGHEGAN Raine Geoghegan MA is a poet and playwright of Romani & Welsh ethnicity. She is a Forward Prize, twice Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominee. Her work has been published internationally both online and in print with Poetry Ireland Review; Travellers’ Times; Under the Radar and many more. Her essay, ‘It’s Hopping Time’ was featured in Gifts of Gravity & Light (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021). She has three pamphlets published with Hedgehog Press. ‘Apple Water: Povel Panni’ was listed in the Poetry Book Society Spring 2019 Selection. Her play ‘The Tree Woman’ was featured online with the Same Boat Theatre Collective in San Francisco. She is the Romani Script Consultant for the musical ‘For Tonight’. ‘The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh’ was published in June 2022 with Salmon Poetry Press. She has read at festivals in the UK, Ireland and Sydney.
The Allotment in Aberbargoed She sits on an old crate watching her Taid pulling up cabbages He pushes his large rough hands into the soil and heaves one out and as some dirt lands on her lap she hears a wheeze as he stands.
It’s his bad chest. She thinks. ‘Too many years underground, breathing in coal dust.’ Her Mam once told her. She jumps up, brushing the dirt away. ‘We’ll have this for our dinner girl, now you have a go.’
She nods her head and squats. He gives her the small red trowel. She teases the earth around the cabbage sticks the trowel in and wiggles it about. ‘Right now girl pull it out.’
Tugging at the cabbage with both hands, she puffs her cheeks and tries again. She’s almost there. Twist and tug then up into the air it comes
continued overleaf... © Raine Geoghegan 2023 November - December POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
