Vera Rich• Show poetry

I am (health-permitting - see below!) a full-time writer, translator of poetry and editor of 'MANIFOLD Magazine of New Poetry'. Outside of "Allpoetry", I can be contacted at manifoldpoetry@googlemail.com.



I translate mainly from Belarusian and Ukrainian Poetry, but have also translated from Polish, Russian, Spanish, Romanian and Old Norse...



I believe strongly in the importance of form in poetry, and - in connection with my translation work, I aim to reproduce the form (rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, syllable count etc) of the original as closely as possible, as well as making it line-for-line accurate. (This may seem an impossible ideal - but it is the ideal I have tried to pursue now for more than 50 years).


Concerning my original work: to clear up a misunderstanding which frequently is revealed by those members of the Allpoetry "community" who comment on my poems may I say that although I frequently write in the first person, this does not mean that the "I" of the poem necessarily reflects my own personal thoughts, attitudes, emotions or experiences. Although obviously such things provide some of the raw material for the poem, the persona who is "speaking" in such a poem may well be simply an artistic construct (and when appropriate may be male). The "I" of "The Great Escape" or "Surviving" is no more the "real-life" Vera Rich than "Porphyria's Lover" or the Duke of "My last Duchess" were the "real-life" Robert Browning!


But sometimes "real life" does have a nasty habit of impinging on one's work - As some of you may be aware, at the end of February 2006 I had to have undergo major surgery (radical mastectomy/lymphectomy) for cancer - and after that had to go through the various stages of post-operative treatment (including chemotherapy and then radiotherapy - and also six months of daily injections to dissolve blood-clots in my lungs that had developed as a a side effect of the chemo!)...

During this difficult time, I felt greatly sustained by the prayers, "positive thoughts" and good wishes of my Allpoetry friends, and I cannot express in full the sincere gratitude I feel.


I am now much recovered (at least I think so! - thoughI have some further hospital "investigations" pending) but although I never had to stop working completely, during my illness quite a hefty backlog of work piled up. I have cleared a substantial part of this (two major books published during the past winter), but others are still outstanding... And now a deadline provisionally set for April 2009 has been brought forward to October 2008!!!!

And to make matters worse, although, as I said, I am much recovered, my "creative" energy seems to have plateaued at around two thirds of what it used to be... and by the end of the working day I am often far too exhausted to cope with Allpoetry. And with the aforesaid altered deadline, what was a difficult situation now becomes virtually impossible!

For I do not consider it fair to attempt to critique someone's poem unless one is feeling fresh and receptive.

So, in effect, the most I shall be able to do until October is to teach an occasional "Winklings' class" and possibly to enter the occasional competition that is open to prewritten work, in the event of my having something suitable already on the site.

Apart from that... I doubt I shall be much in evidence until around Hallowe'en


In the meantime,if for some reason you need to contact me urgently, you can e-mail me at manifoldpoetry@googlemail.com



By the way, you will see below that it says I "support" Allpoetry as a gold member.

This is not strictly true - it is another member (Three-Egg-Omelet) who is "supporting" it, having gifted me with gold membership - and I should like to acknowledge his kindness.

May I stress however, that although as a gold member I (theoretically) have the capacity to check who has looked at my poems, this is not a privilege I am very happy about. In the past, I have received hassle from various Allpoetry "gold" members from having opened their poems but not commented on them. There were various reasons for this. While I was ill, the doctors stressed that my recovery (or otherwise) depended to a significant extent on whether or not I maintained a cheerful and positive frame of mind. I tried therefore to avoid "gloom and doom" poems - and if by chance I opened one accidentally, I shut it up at once! Likewise, my eyes, never good at the best of times, were badly affected by the various drugs I had to take, and I could not easily read poems presented in difficult colour-schemes. On top of that, there were the usual various porlocking interruptions - e.g. work-related telephone calls that had to be dealt with immediately and/or which (e.g. calls from the Income Tax office!) completely destroyed the auspicious mood one needs to appreciate, - and a fortiori comment on - poetry.

(Maybe the gold members concerned have a calmer life, with secretaries to deflect porlockers!)

To sum up: please have no fear that I shall be in anyway offended if you open my poems but do not comment on them. (For I shall not even know!) On the understanding that, if you DO comment on my work, YOU will not be offended if I do not acknowledge your remark immediately... for as I said above, I shall be virtually out-of-contact for the next six months.