Authors and their Books

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email: nancy.fosterfeet@gmail.com Clare Crossman “The Mulberry Tree” Clare Crossman, a local author, lived in Meldreth over the last 20 years. She worked on this collection before her untimely death from cancer earlier this year. Clare wrote poetry at an early age: from 1993 a member of the new Lakeland poets in Cumbria, she was encouraged by her mentor Willian Scammell to publish her poetry. She was active in the Cambridge arts scene and undertook the teaching of poetry and creative writing for both adults and children, including at our local schools in Melbourn and Meldreth. Clare has undertaken workshops with Cambridge Arts Salon. Clare also undertook numerous collaborations with other artists, see https://waterlightproject.org.uk/, and collaborated with the musician Penni Mclaren Walker on a sequence, ‘Fensong a Ballad of the Fen’.

To know more about Clare and her work go to https://clarecrossman.net/ Included below are 3 poems from the collection. Firstly the title poem: The Mulberry Tree Nothing was ever wasted: elastic bands, old envelopes, paper bags put neatly away. It was because of the war, that might come back; and so we had to eat our greens, not leave the crusts on bread pretend to like rice pudding. Jam was made from berries of the mulberry tree. Kept high on shelves in the cool basement, rusty red, almost amber, sweeter than raspberries. ‘The lovers tree’ she called it. Soft wood, gnarled and leaning, standing in the garden for years. We were allowed to climb it, imagined we’d find rolls of silk. Slept beneath it in a tepee; unafraid. We had seen the rubble. The shells of houses with no floors, the strange murals of fireplaces imprinted on high walls. But could not imagine what it was like when bombs fell from the sky. We were the future, held in photographs, bright against the day. The lucky ones, swinging on the branches of a golden age; come out of a terrible knowledge, into a lengthening shade.

Sit Places (for Belle) I walk there most mornings to the green stretching of the fields and stand leaning in the shade of trees between two corridors of light. And I think how the land can own places with its calligraphy, how it writes in old tracks hedges, tussocks and ragged edges where nobody goes. When there’s a small bridge over thin water. the ditch runs underneath, greening with weeds and dragonflies. Time around me like the river in deep quiet under the sky. There are always two horses, they snuffle and eat the grass. I envy their long patience, the wild they know. But here, where the larks dance, this ordinary moment is a statement for another way of being. Air above my head, ground below my feet. In a stillness, nothing owned enough to watch and be.

Femme Fatale My hat is crocheted wool, almost a hair net or snood. From the shadows of a Bette Davis film in black and white I enter rooms flaunting a black butterfly. Sequined, embellished, like an exotic stranger. I have joined the shorn and short haired women who let time show on us and no longer pretend to understand fashion. We have experimented with the postulant or Vermeer girl, (a simple wimple made of cloth) or the rose-embroidered turban, bamboo knit for comfort, afternoons of ennui, being Blanche du Bois. We have been shown great kindness. Like a small sisterhood of Buddhist nuns in the temples of haberdasher shops. Full of the wisdom of crochet, velvet gypsy scarves, and beanies. See our robes and bells, forget our missing parts. We do not need you to pray for us or be told that in the moment is where we should live. Talk to us.

Tribute Clare completed a BA degree in English from Bristol University and MA in Theatre Studies from Lancaster University. Her first collection “Landscapes” won the Redbeck poetry competition (1996). Clare had eight collections of poetry and inclusions in numerous anthologies published, wrote a biography of the Cumbrian artist Lorna Graves ‘Winter Flowers’ and organised many readings.

In 2009 she was awarded by South Cambridgeshire District Council for her poetry workshops with schools, communities and charities.

Clare’s lifetime achievements were considerable, at heart it was Clare’s humanity, her friendships, her ability to bring people together and bring out the best in them that marked Clare as a very special person. Iain McPhee

Are you or a friend an author with a published book? Tell the readers of Melbourn Magazine about how and why you came to write your book, provide an abridged extract, and some biographical details. Contact Melbourn Magazine for full details email: melbournmagazine@gmail.com Telephone: 261144.