September’s Monthly Stories and Poems

We're continuing our year-long exploration of the theme of 'home', bringing together another selection of prose and poetry to help us think, particularly, of how 'home' connects to ideas of roots and ancestry. What happens when strangeness - a new person, a new language (or even a new planet, in the sci-fi story 'Desertion') - disrupts to our connection to our past life or our forebears? What is it like when a new language imposes a new perspective? The story 'Stay Home' and the extract from the novel How Green Was My Valley both deal with the death of a father, and how grief and memory can preserve or isolate us from the past and those around us. Through these, and through poems from John Agard and Judith Wright we can also explore the connections that reach through time and space to bind us together and give a sense of belonging.

September’s selections are:

Stories & extracts

‘Stay Home’ by Sita Brahmachari

‘Words’: an extract from The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

‘A Living Truth Inside My Mind’: an extract from How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

‘Desertion’ by Clifford D. Simak

‘A Little Burst’ by Elizabeth Strout

Poems

‘Toussaint L'Ouverture acknowledges Wordsworth's sonnet “To Toussaint L'Ouverture”’ by John Agard

‘Presents From My Aunts in Pakistan’ by Moniza Alvi

‘First Gift’ by Imtiaz Dharker

‘A Silent Letter’ by Meena Kandasamy

‘Woman to Child’ by Judith Wright

By Frances Macmillan (Literature Engagement Lead at The Reader)