Featured Poetry Bettina How do you make green?

How do you make green?

In school they threw her out of painting class.
She was useless at colours, she says.
Her face is wrinkled now.
Her frame has shrunk to the size of a child and
she is still afraid to make a mistake.
Four times in one hour she asks:
‘How do you make green’, and adds
‘I am useless at painting’.
Her withered hands tremble,
she still believes what she was told,
and yet
despite it all,
she shows up and attempts to make green.

2003

– –

Poems chosen from an anthology of poems called ‘For Crying Out Loud – Voice of an Exile’, published early 2016.

Bettina

Bettina John von Freyend-Peterseil was born at the end of the 2nd World War in Germany. She exiled herself early on, travelling the world, never able to settle anywhere for long. She now lives in the West of Ireland, where she and her husband built their home, raised their children and tended the land. She has been teaching, writing and in the past 15 years creating her collage work.

The poetry compilation ‘For Crying Out Loud- voice of an exile’ comes at a time when globally people are forced to move on a large scale. Bettina offers a personal account of the mindset of a self imposed exile. She reveals her disconnection and her longing to belong mirroring a world also steeped in separation.

Ouevre

There is a time

Poetry by Bettina

There is a time to hang on and a time to let go. Now is the letting go time, the ending time, leaving the shore time, handing over my will...

Who was I?

Poetry by Bettina

Who was I before I forgot your face? Who was I before I forgot your name? Who was I before? My mother’s face, my father’s face, my brother’s face. Mother...

Disconnection

Poetry by Bettina

Disconnected, heavily defended, I avoid you when I pass you in the street, our eyes don’t meet, like empty shuttles they seem to be travelling nowhere. Disconnected, heavily defended, I...

View all Works by this Author

Anthology

The Window Seat

Poetry by Knute Skinner

I found Edna stretched out there, absorbing the sun. “You look just like a cat,” I announced and put down my armload of books. “Do you also purr?” “I purr...

Victory Dance

Poetry by Sanaya

Let me dance my Victory dance around the anarchy that crumbles Inside me. Rubber band arms stretch far out Collision Rejection Dismantle this machinery of misery, let each bolt fall...

Such total giving

Poetry by Pariksith Singh

Such total giving Back to you, the world Down to the marrow, the bones Such complete shedding of me Purge of will Adoration so deep it becomes surrender Submission such...