South Coast Poets Out Loud
Fresh new poetry and writing brought to you by the South Coast Writers Centre.
Season 6 features poems from 34-37 Degrees South Poetry Anthology for 2025 on the theme 'Words / No Words'.
Season 5 features poems shortlisted in the 2025 South Coast Writers Centre Awards as well as readings from Temple - the 2024 anthology of writing.
Season 3 features poets from the anthology 34-37 Degrees South - Signs 2024. Season 2 features poets shortlisted for the South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Awards 2024. Season 1 features poets from the anthology - 34-37 Degrees South - Country 2023.
All these works are brought to you by the South Coast Writers Centre celebrating 30 years of great writing in 2025 - southcoastwriters.org
South Coast Poets Out Loud
A Baby is Not a Sestina by Myf Walker
Myf Walker reads her poem 'A Baby is not a Sestina'
This poem appears in 34-37 Degrees South 2025 - An Anthology of Poetry from members of the South Coast Writers Centre.
Fresh words brought to you by the South Coast Writers Centre
A baby is not a sestina by Myf Walker
my mother said this life must be earned
if you crave it so then prove it
oh, how I have crafted the doing me
the output me. The scrawled me
scent sprayed on repurposed pulp
those lacerations on tree frames
all those waterlogged words
the building dams me
the doctor says for your final gambit
do less for your last grasp
at flesh-ness at love-ness
this is how you grow an idea
from chromosomes say it with me
deoxyribonucleic acid
now the doing you will simply not do
luteinisingfollicle stimulatinghormones
say it with me: you cannot write yourself
into conception.
a baby is not a string of syllables
not a collection of morphemes
curated and cultivated into syntax
nor a narrative arc of benign creatures
formed into fellowship
and say it with me
a baby does not emerge
from blood on a page
from a mastery of form
a baby is not a sestina