Jenna Plewes Poet

Jenna’s wonderful words of comfort

Jenna Plewes is a wonderfully inspiring lady and an accomplished poet.

CompIetely Bromsgrove editor Michele Ford was fortunate to be able to spend a couple of hours learning about Jenna’s life story and how writing poetry has saved her sanity through lockdown.

Eighty-year-old Jenna was first brought to Michele’s attention through a video created by Mazen Salmou she spotted on social media. Mazen, who lives in Bromsgrove, was one of many volunteers that spent his time looking after others and collecting prescriptions during lockdown. Jenna commissioned Mazen to do the video after she’d been one of the poets reading in a video he shot to publicise Doors, the poetry anthology launched in aid of Bromsgrove and Redditch welcomes Refugees. There are four in the series with the fifth due to be launched at the end of September. The video really touched Michele and she was thrilled when Jenna agreed to chat to her and share her story with Completely Bromsgrove readers. Jenna studied English at university as she always had a passion for creative writing, especially poetry. However, when she realised she wasn’t going to make a living out of writing she switched courses, opting for social studies and forging a career within the medical profession. She began as a medical social worker and then progressed to the role of psychotherapist and counsellor at New Road Doctors Surgery, where she worked for approximately 15 years. Since Jenna has retired and has more time on her hands, she has been able to return to her first love - poetry. She attended a creative writing course and it has lit the flame that still lies within her. Jenna has written four collections of poetry, all of which are in print and can be obtained by emailing her on jenna.selvas@googlemail.com. All proceeds from the the latest book, The Salt and Sweet of Memory and from the lockdown collection will benefit Samaritans and Childline. Her new collection The Underside of Things, is published at the end of September, Jenna’s new work came about when she won the Hedgehog Poetry Press competition with her collection of 40 poems written during lockdown. She will be selling the book - to be called The Underside of Things - in aid of Childline and Samaritans. 28 Completely Bromsgrove

The poems brought tears to Michele’s eyes and made her appreciate how the last few months has brought the best out in so many people of all ages.

Jenna ended the conversation with this beautiful sentiment: “The poems I have written through lockdown, which was a poem a day, literally followed the arc.”

Here are some of Jenna’s wonderful poems taken from her delightful books:

Unlocking 1st stanza

How will it be when I remove the chain, swing the door wide, let out the sour smell of fear, squeeze past the piled up clutter of frustration, step outside, soft-skinned and wary of the world?

Home

A settling, a warmth, a smell of safety, something from before there were words, a lulling in the wind, a patterning of light, a resting place, and then a moving on.

Lifting Lockdown

The wind’s strong at the top of the field crackles sheets of crinkled gold-leaf as acres of buttercups flicker in heat and light. Birches shift and hassle on the margins. A slate sky hardens the horizon. Air sizzles with impatience, the motorway roars like surf on shingle. I take the slow way down, grass flattened underfoot - not ready to outrun my fears.

Jenna with her poems