Kate Potts

Having a week off from my new job, this week I had the chance to photograph the poet, Kate Potts. I met Kate at her home in Ebley near Strould. Kate made me welcome and together we made a series of portraits.

Kate Potts is a poet, mentor and creative writing lecturer. Her collection Feral (Bloodaxe, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and a Telegraph poetry book of the month. Her most recent book, Pretenders, is a multi-voice exploration of imposter feelings. She teaches for Dialect and recently founded Poetical Workshop, a flexible, inspiring online community that helps people make space for poetry in their lives. Kate lives in Stroud with her son. 

Kate has kindly shared one of her poems.

Lullaby no.3

I repeat the word 'sleepy' until my son rubs his paws against his eyes.

I recite all his books from memory, and paint the illustrations

with my voice, and I sing goodnight to the stars and the air, the oak tree

outside our window and that yellow camper van, our laundry rack

and unwashed dishes, porridge smeared up the wall.

And if I diffuse lavender oil into the air

and rub his chest and legs with warm oils of chamomile and lavender,

if I remember all seventeen steps of our Viennese waltz, and don't blank or stumble…

Now I point to the moon, who is sleeping. I say ‘go like that.’

Now I haul him back from his somersaults, his kicking tailspin. I wrestle him back

from the top of the stairwell, the window ledge, knife-blade, the heart-stopping edge.

If I say ‘No, no’ to cat’s tail-yanking, hair-pulling, hurtling-crescendo, and he listens…

If I am calm, and think calm thoughts…

If I see the world in a pastel, picture book palette, shut out the pelting rain

and the creaking girders, the icy ocean beneath us.

If I am good, deserving of sleep: not a slather-toothed wolf in disguise…

If I bury my anger deep. If I breathe. If I think kind thoughts about those that pain me

(may they be happy, may they be well).

If my body is warm, and close at hand. If I count, exhale…

If tomorrow can still be salvaged: patched and pinned with moxy and guile...

If I breathe. If I breathe. If my milk is sweet.