JOY Sophia was, and is, a joy to me. It seemed appropriate to enter a poem into the 2017 ACU poetry competition which had “Joy” as its theme. It was a poem I wrote when Sophie was alive, over which she had passed her incisive critical eye, so I feel it bears a part of her. Sophie was the best reader one could have—observant, precise, never self-interested, always focussed on the craft. How wonderful it was
The Ripples section of Sophia’s website is designed to highlight the various creative endeavours inspired by her life and work. Recently we added the following items. Others are to follow. Elegy for Sophia by Gershon Maller: http://sophianugentsiegal.com/sophias-elegy/ The website: http://sophianugentsiegal.com/the-phoenix/ Fiona Dempster's impress of Sophia's poem: http://sophianugentsiegal.com/with-the-eye-of-beauty-a-commission-for-sophia/ I say your name: http://sophianugentsiegal.com/i-say-your-name/
I say your name ... For a long time after Sophia’s death, I could not write. Profound grief demands an endurance that seems to occupy all space. Last year, however, the process of working on Sophie’s website made it possible to begin to write again, and to write poetry. I have begun a collection of poems dedicated to Sophia (of which 33 have been written so far). This is how it begins; here
Self-Portrait As A Reflection Slowly, slowly, I come to the waters And am set down in deepness Shallow as a mirror Burnished as gall My eyes are bluer now Are they not? But not grey, not grey As the clipping soundless owl Coin-bright for Hades But blue as a sky-painted egg Smashed into novas Into broken white stars by Sophia Nugent-Siegal ©
Rough Sleepers Our dreams are ragged Sold by the rag trade Sweated over like a brown-edged book Gilded with bodily imaginings My fever dream under this shadowed roof Is of a home I ate to pieces like a caterpillar eating its carapace For we are not snails And the angel stands with his flaming sword Between dream and truth A line thin as a needle Parting my hair Sleeping