About Sue Blott

Sue and her son, Dane, at Kakabeka Falls, Ontario

Born in Yorkshire, England and a writer in many genres, Sue Blott considers herself a poet at heart. She’s won prizes in NOWW’s annual contests and participates in Random Acts of Poetry. As a member of the Thunder Bay Writers’ Guild, she’s had fiction published in two short story anthologies. She feels especially fortunate belonging to a poetry group with the established, talented poets in Core Samples.





Prize winning poems by Sue Blott:

Lovers’ Lane

I’ve nicknamed my walking path

Lovers’ Lane this spring.

A messy crow’s nest

perches on a hydro tower

and two crows teeter

on spruce tree tops

like charred stars.

They flap black wings

and caw caw a warning

as the dog and I stroll by.

Between railways tracks,

a pair of Canada geese

crane ringed necks

to watch us pass.

Further along another pair,

less brave,

waddle over steel tracks

and down an embankment

as they scold us

with their honking.

In a driveway

on an intersecting street,

a red-clad toddler

be-bops to the road.

Behind, her parents cluck,

“Come here. Stay close!”

All the birds quiet

and still themselves

to listen.

What Else?

On the back steps, my black dog lies,

fur drenched by the rising sun.

With his eyes closed, his nose twitches

sensing seasons change.

What else to do, this August morn,

but sit beside him sipping tea?

A Mingling Moment

As Emily Brontë walked Yorkshire Moors

with her mastiff, Keeper,

braving fierce northern gales,

which must have ripped through

all her best woollen clothes

to ravage her innermost folds,

so I walk on cracked-egg tarmac

with my black mongrel, Rascal,

down to the Kaministiquia River,

frozen with whorls like heart prints,

beyond which Mount McKay looms

and beckons with native mysticism.

A rattle of bridge iron

and a drone of transports

combines with a moan from ice floes;

I imagine it is Emily’s skeleton creaking

while her spirit emits a restless groan.

A poem comes whistling on the wind.

“Here, Keeper!” I call and,

in a mingling moment,

see a purple span of heather,

hear sheep bleating

and feel the yearning of  a poet’s soul

by a river in northern Ontario.

Rogue

October: our anniversary month.

To celebrate our bond of dog and human,

we’ve gone with the wind

on a walk together

towards a gold-cloaked mountain.

As a nameless soul

from Animal Control,

a newspaper ad dubbed you

‘A Perfect Gentleman.’

More appropriately,

I could have named you

Shadow, Sweep or Blackie,

but I saw a glint in your eyes

of  a reckless spirit

and the tilt of your chin

reminded me

of defiance, Rhett-Butler-style.

So, I called you

Rogue.

 

Parallel Tracks

Solitary walks

by railways tracks

keep me close

to my father who,

solitary, walks

in open fields

and schoolyards.