JANE BLANK.

 Jane's work has been widely anthologised and published in magazines eg. The Observer; Planet; New Welsh Review and Poetry Wales and she specialises in performing her poetry. Jane has just finished her first novel,'Fatima and Miranda' and has some auto biographical prose out in a new collection by Honno, 'Laughing, Not Laughing.'  Her anthology  'Naked Playing the Cello' was launched at Abergavenny, Berlin and Prauge in 2004.

Jane studied for her first degree in Drama and English at UEA in the 1980s and is a professional teacher, teaching both subjects from nursery right through to BA students. She holds an MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing (Dist.) from Cardiff where she studied under many distinguished writers and tutors including Norman Schwenk, Lindsay Clarke and Ann Cluysennar. Jane is currently Creative Writing tutor at The Hill Adult Education and Conference Centre and at the Cotswold Conference Centre. Her hobbies include riding and playing the cello - either clothed or naked depending on the weather.

Jane's collection "Naked Playing the Cello" (ISBN 1 899449 95 7.) is published by "The Collective Press" & is available to order from www.welshwriters.com or The Collective, Penlanlas Farm, Llantilio Pertholey, Y Fenni, Sir Fynwy, NP7 7HN, Cymru, UK. & all book shops.

She can also be contacted for readings or tuition workshops via her publisher

            NAKED  PLAYING THE  CELLO

Bristols Bristols Crescendo!

Long-necked like a woman

Mirrored-up with a certain smile.

                    Right nipple glances outward

Bellows bowing arm reveals

hides

Black pit mouth hair.

 
                    Hard cello

press

Cold cello

Chair buttock-spread.

 
                    Moisture gulps out

Will it all fall away!

With friction wood warms.

Shadow, where

cello pressures leg

pinching pinching suede knees.

                    Upwards:

Gentle gradient of flesh curves

Hip-knobble smoothed over

Continuum as

pale wing pulls

and closes.

Side view:

Perfect snail shell scroll

Thick pony-tail gleaming

Light

round brown mark on haired white thigh

Shoulder,     

         cream, 

as vibrations chase through horse hair

string

in wood

Radiate in hidden left breast

                    Deep notes are the best.

Corset-waist cello

striped

           carved

                      twiddled

is played.

Years run away:

Still the mirror

The figure

The cello.

                    But what if

Time-lapse photography

like the decaying mouse

were to speed that bowing?

                    A sawing mad cacophony

whirr of demented spider left

begins to fail

Body round the cello shrivels-

crisp packet in fire

                    Spectrum sound

narrows

becomes a reed

Churning light catches wood-grain cello

gleams on varnish, just the  same but

Rattles lost in her maze of grey.

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