Leave the turkeys alone

It's the week before Christmas and Bethany Williams is dropping off copies of her debut collection of poetry at the Saturday Books shop in Dudley. Williams' book, 'Waiting for the blue' explores the nature of grief and loss. In particular, her own. Her poetry is an anthology that centres around grief, how it reshapes everything and shows how we can hold on to love in spite of it all. It is a collection that we can all relate to.

I first heard Bethany read from 'Waiting for the blue' a few weeks ago at a poetry breakfast organized by Saturday Books. From published poets to those that are doing their first open-mic poet, the readers share their work over coffee and croissants once a month. It is in this environment (MC Claire Tedstone describes it as 'we are just like a big family' ), that Bethany has, over the last two years, gone from quiet observer, to reluctant reader, to headliner. Her poetry is so open-hearted and sincere, he words are so visceral. She floored everyone

After her last reading, I asked Bethany if she could write something for OL's Holiday Hits and Horrors series. By the next day, she had sent me the following poem. You may gather that the reference to 'Benjamin' - is indeed 'Zephaniah' - whom Bethany has been a great admirer of for quite some time.

So, over to Bethany to ponder the pros and cons of the festive season.

As Benjamin would've said -
leave the turkeys alone
Let's stop killing trees
and being glued to our phones

Crackers are fun
but they're always just tat
Presents upon presents
Glitzy this and shiny that

I think we're all fudged!