Welcome to the fourth Showcase of National Poetry Month and our continuing exploration into the theme of Misunderstandings. This week, I’m introducing three distinct literary pieces that encapsulate this theme. Each underscores the multifaceted nature of misunderstanding, reflecting how perception shapes — and sometimes distorts — our relationships with ourselves and one another.

As we navigate the intricacies of our lived experience, it’s important to recognise that our personal perceptions and interpretations are based on our own societal and familial conditioning. This viewpoint can often be at diametric opposites to the intentions and realities of others.

Many of you may have just celebrated the Easter Weekend: Ostara, if you follow the Celtic or Pagan calendar; a festival that pre-dated Christianity. A Spring festival celebrating the Goddess of Spring, Eostre. As a child I attended Sunday School and was somewhat confused by The Holy Trinity. God and Jesus were concepts I could handle but the idea of The Holy Ghost was a whole other concept. Ghosts to me were Looney Tunes bedsheets with eye holes that went around spooking people. As an undiagnosed autistic, I took everything literally: ‘green fingers’ ‘kicking the bucket’ ‘holy ghost’ ‘raining cats and dogs.’

The way words bend and flex over time is something that fascinates me. Meanings change because of regional context, culture, religion, pronunciation and usage. Symbols too, that often have one meaning in one country can mean something completely different elsewhere. I could wax lyrical about the Triskele, the Triquetra, the Vesica Piscis, the Holy Trinity and the Maiden, Mother, Crone. All represent paths to understanding the complexity of the mind, body and spirit.

As a child I attended Sunday School and was somewhat confused by The Holy Trinity. God and Jesus were concepts I could handle but the idea of The Holy Ghost was a whole other concept. Ghosts to me were Looney Tunes bedsheets with eye holes that went around spooking people. As an undiagnosed autistic, I took everything literally: ‘green fingers’ ‘kicking the bucket’ ‘holy ghost’ ‘raining cats and dogs.’

I’ve been looking forward to sharing this poem by Estelle Phillips whose collection, Motherhoodlum, was published by Jawbone in 2023. This beautifully poignant poem presents the themes of faith and absence, capturing the silent misunderstandings that often emerge between the divine and the human experience.

The timing and the title couldn’t be better!

The First Wednesday After Easter

I lunched on watercress sandwiches
and went to church.

Daffodils drooped at the foot of the porch,
their petals tinged brown
and trumpets withered.
Nailed to the door, a notice announced

“He is not here.
He is risen
as He said He would.”

I pushed the church door. It opened
with gravel caught under its wood,
scratched
the stone of the floor.

Sat in a pew
I felt He was near
and did not believe
He was gone.

I sat.

The quiet
moved me to tears,
or was it His absence?

Perhaps He was here
but hidden
under the altar,
beyond the font
or behind the organ?

I stood and walked
down the nave.
Did He suppress giggles
when I drew near,
cover his mouth with his hand?
Could He reach out

and touch me?
I knelt and prayed.
A sense of Him
wafted ethereal

and slipped away.
Perhaps He and God
had tea and watched football on television.
“Two lumps, please Dad.”
“Sugar is bad for your teeth, Son.
Didn’t they teach You anything on earth?”

I thought of the time
after the car crash.
Nearly dead
and not in this world or that
I ran down a tunnel
shouting “God, where are you?”
His Father was nowhere to be seen,

and I knew

it was not my time.

*

I got up from my knees
and hung the prayer cushion back on its hooks.
The door latch was two feet long
and I used both hands to close it.

Outside was bright.
I exited through the gap in the hedge.
My eye caught movement.
I peered through yew needles
and saw my neighbour

but not his wife.
He stood on his patio,
hands grabbed on the metal edge of a barbecue.
It looked like he prayed

or cried.

And watching from
inside my neighbour’s kitchen,
Jesus put the kettle on.

(c) Estelle Phillips, 2023

Connect with Estelle Phillips via Instagram: @estelle_writer44

Estelle’s poem powerfully encapsulates the human search for meaning and connection in a seemingly indifferent world. I love the way she uses vivid imagery, emotional depth, and a blend of reverence and humour to illustrate misunderstandings in her quest for divine connection.

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The second piece I want to share this week is a piece of flash fiction by another poet published by The Jawbone Collective, Caroline Burrows. Her collection, Verse Cycles, was published by Jawbone in March 2024. This piece looks at the unspoken divide between two individuals, highlighting the misunderstandings that arise from personal insecurities and assumptions.

The Barrier

The wine bar’s window reflected Lana in her fluorescent jacket as she approached the bike racks. She hesitated, recognising the bike chained up next to hers. Dillon’s bike. Again. Lana took a sharp inward breath, and blew the air out slowly, as if from a cigarette; sometimes she really missed smoking.

She unlocked her bike, carefully liberating it from the tangle it was in with Dillon’s on the other side.

His bike ended up resting at an odd angle, like a drunk leaning away from whatever was trying to give it some support. She set it upright, a little act of kindness despite being sure it would go unnoticed and unappreciated. Then she put the lock in her rucksack, pulled out her helmet, gloves and—

‘It’s so cold,’ came a muffled voice from behind her.

She spun round. It wasn’t Dillon, just another cyclist with a scarf over his mouth. The man nodded at her and went to his bike at the end.

‘Freezing,’ she said, getting on her bike, pedalling away from the man’s reply.

Lana didn’t hear Dillon behind the bar’s window, wishing her a safe journey as she cycled towards the bike path, always riding the long way home. He was confident she’d never come in the wine bar. Not her cup of tea. He sat there, too afraid to approach her after all this time, in case she cycled away from him, too.

The window, now empty of her, reflected Dillon’s ghosted image as he downed his whisky and stood, stumbling slightly as he made his way outside to his carefully rearranged bike.

The cold burned Lana’s ears as she pedalled. She stopped and rooted around in her rucksack for her headband, the one her friend had knitted especially for her. Maybe it’d fallen out of her bag at the racks. She doubled back, pulling over out of sight when she saw Dillon bending down beside his bike to pick up the cerise headband, which he then put it in his pocket.

She watched him weaving into a stuttering flow of buses, cars and exhaust fumes. Still taking the riskier route. He was never going to change. ‘Safe journey,’ said Lana, the white breath from her words blowing like smoke, which disappeared in the crisp night air as she turned away and cycled the safer way home.

(c) Caroline Burrows, 2024

Connect with Caroline Burrows via Instagram: @versecycle

Caroline is known to me as an accomplished poet and this is the first piece of flash she has written that I’ve had a chance to read. I enjoyed living this story and seeing how, through the characters’ missed opportunities for connection, we can understand how the spectre of fear can inhibit honest communication.It shows how societal norms and self-imposed barriers can lead to profound disconnects; thus echoing the need for vulnerability and openness to navigate misunderstandings.

I loved the fact that this flash revolves around bicycles. Caroline is a cycling eco-poet and generally tours on her trusted steed, ‘Bikey.’ I already knew her work and had seen her perform in Exeter. Knowing she was touring, heading North to the Lake District and Scotland, I thought I could connect with her as she was passing near my childhood home in Derbyshire.

I met Caroline over coffee and convinced her to take the shorter scenic route up Winnats Pass out of Castleton. As children, we used to walk up and down that hill just to find an ice cream van. I misunderstood the logistics of a bicycle with panniers, fully loaded with camping equipment; also that I had just directed her to go up one of the most challenging hill climbs in the country. I think, after we published her and some time had passed, I was finally forgiven.

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We will finish today’s Showcase with a poem from the collection of Madeleine F White: Maiden, Mother, Crone. In her poem the archetypal journey through womanhood is depicted with rich symbolism, exposing the misunderstandings surrounding female identity as women transition through different life stages.

Maiden, Mother, Crone

Maiden, Mother, Crone
Maiden, Mother, Crone
Moon waxing and waning, I’m never alone.
The faster I go, the faster it follows –
I turn to face my tomorrows.

I am. Pain tells me I am.
Knowledge of how my body fits where it shouldn’t,
already some bits floating
in the bath where flesh flashes;
A gurgling laugh. Thumb in mouth. Plugged.
I am.

Child’s plumped flesh, pleasant, present.
Thumb in mouth. Plugged.
Silver-fished jumping to winged-hope imaginings
moving beyond the drowning.
Floating silence caught in a radiator’s hum.
Gurgled murmurings cut through water-logged memories.
Desire thrums.

Another place. Stuffing of face…
Sick-making, all-eating sweet.
Flesh waxing, spirit waning till thumb unplugged
the Maiden rises and despite surfeit of flesh,
as a fleet-footed deer she evades the spears of unmaking.
The world turns.
Surprise!

Maiden, Mother, Crone
Maiden, Mother, Crone
Moon waxing and waning, I’m never alone.
The faster I go, the faster it follows –
I turn to face my tomorrows.

I am. Pain tells me I am.
She-wolf now I rest a while, but not long.
Plastering my red-painted lupine smile across moon-soaked streets
I hope the disguise will allow me to pad past silently.
But memories shriek, until I roar.
Claim my place as Mother, not meat.

My cubs will eat.

I demand the earth swallows the shadows that follow.
I will not lie on my back for a tickle.
I am become Bitch, but not for long.
Canine breath exhaling, breathes life into the serpent
I’d curled round my soul to keep their world whole.
A Mother’s fangs break the skin.
Upwards and in.

Winding, binding, reminding, finding – I am.
Consuming, colluding, creating – I can.
Breathing fire where there was none
I’m released from the safe-dark
Pain ceases.
I come.

Maiden, Mother, Crone
Maiden, Mother, Crone
Moon waxing and waning, I’m never alone.
The faster I go, the faster it follows –
I turn to face my tomorrows.

I am. Anger has consumed.
An inferno of flame banishes pain.
‘Be still my daughter.’ No longer lamb to the slaughter.
Mutton now. But mutton is tough.
It must be boiled enough to render it digestible.
I remain indigestible
preferring flame to water.

The same words, the same promises
Serpent-encased-self dragoning
into a world unmade and remade.
Breaking the consistency of constancy with
the power of stillness, entropy’s womb.

My womb has shrivelled as I have grown –
Blood’s call dripping from incisors bleached by time,
beckoning me from charnel houses and ossuaries.
Path strewn by bones from those like me.

Flesh fails, spirit quails and yet I walk.
Beware. These grey hairs you see are snakes.
They will turn you to stone.
I am Crone.

Maiden, Mother, Crone
Maiden, Mother, Crone
Moon waxing and waning,
I am called home.

(c) Madeleine F White, 2025

You can connect with Madeleine White via Instagram and X: @madeleinefwhite

The complexities of misunderstanding can create barriers to acknowledging the powerful essence of women’s experiences, further exemplifying how societal narratives often distort our self-perceptions. I enjoyed reading this piece and look forward to getting my own copy of Madeleine’s book, which was released earlier this month.

The sacred feminine is not exclusive to women; just as the sacred masculine is not exclusive to men. Since neither is gender specific and we all have both masculine and feminine energy, embracing the two can lead to increased self-confidence and authentic expression. In July, one of our Jawbone Workshops will be co-facilitated by myself and Madeleine.

*****

The narratives presented in these three pieces illustrate how misunderstandings are woven into the very fabric of our human experience. From the silent struggles of faith to the barriers of connection, the challenges of identity and the societal perceptions of femininity, they remind us that our realities are often significantly shaped by our interpretations and assumptions.

Each of the authors invites us to expand our understanding by shining a light on the hidden depths of their experiences, encouraging us to navigate our misunderstandings with compassion and openness. It is through this journey of exploration and acceptance that we can perhaps find our way towards more meaningful connections with others and ourselves.

Thank you for sticking with me on this journey throughout National Poetry Month. For my final Showcase next week I will be touching on magic, technology and capitalism.What could possibly go wrong?!

The Jawbone Collective is a group of 18 creatives spread across the SouthWest of England. We are also a small press publisher, workshop and live event organiser. www.jawbonecollective.org.uk

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If you’d like to see your writing appear in the Write On! Showcase, please submit your short stories, poetry or novel extracts to: pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

Hear extracts from Showcase in our podcast. Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify for Pocasters.

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