After attending an embroidery session with the Coffee and Laughs group at Community House on Eton road. I met Susan Lewis who is a poet. She shared 2 poems that she has written during sessions with Artist Marion Cheung who has been developing a Maindee tapestry over the past few months...
Poems by Susan Lewis
Below is an interview with her and if you scroll down you will hear the read the poems.
Susan attends the Coffee & Laughs group which is a friendship group for women of all ages, faiths and cultures. They spend time together, chatting about all sorts of topics to get to know one another well.
I love Mmaindee.
We all love Maindee
What it Is
Was
Isn't
Will be
Changing permanence
Stable fluctuation
Homogenous diversity.
It is
welcoming, close at hand
It was
all anyone needed
It isn't
anodyne, malled, care-free, car-free;
You need your wits about you.
It will be
What we make it
Us, together
Welsh from everywhere
Big-bodied Corporation
Smart-parked Chepstow
Arteries into the city's heart.
One minute speeding its oxygen along
The next - clogged.
Always life-sustaining.
And what of its veins?
Created and named by Victorian boom-town elders:
Straight and long,
Modest and tidy
The terraces of Manchester, Bristol and London Street tell of migration:
Families facing uncertainty moving to the promise of work.
Under the rail bridge
To Eton, Rugby, Malborough
Key workers and managers
Clerical and professional
Houses imposing and bayed
Each house then and now
A cluster of cells, their DNA creating identity.
Once from the West Country and the Midlands
Now from Asia and Eastern Europe.
The blood is rich.
I love Maindee; We all love Maindee.