The poetry of Dale Gunthorp is at its very best when at its most impressionistic. ‘Southsea Postcards’ is just such a poem, a testament to the poet’s sympathy and observational skill – a practice of looking and listening that has evidently been honed for many years. The three sections deliver brief, pithy slices of everyday life in ways that imply that this area of the city is an amalgam – of rich and poor, privilege and deprivation happiness and unhappiness, human and non-human – and that this jostling together of disparate forces is the essence of city life. It was published in the collection, This Island City: Portsmouth in Poetry(2010), and is quoted with the kind permission of the poet.

Southsea Postcards
I.
In Wimbledon Road’s little park,
where I know the dogs by name
and their owners by their dogs,
Lulu’s owner said that her granddaughter’s dad
forgot his Parental Contact Order that weekend.
She was glad to have the girl a bit longer
and there were tears behind her glasses.

II.
In the Albert Road fruit and veg shop
where the big woman is thumping tomatoes
onto the scales as if they were potatoes,
an old-young man in sandals complains about sell-by dates.
He takes a blackened banana and wolfs it.
‘Against the law, this stuff, too old,’ he says.
He takes another, adds: ‘Older is sweeter. Like you.’

III.
Outside Waitrose early this winter morning
while the gutters cough and splutter the night’s storm,
five shoppers in sleek coats chat till the doors open.
Just inches from the backs of ten shiny heels,
a mother rat cajoles her shivering infant, to dive
out of sight, quick, through the metal grating
into the swirling drain. Swim, baby rat, for your life.

Dale Gunthorp (Millard) (1941 – ) is a Portsmouth poet, writer, and all-round good egg. Her background is colonial: born in South Africa of New Zealander and Mauritian parents, she left the country when the apartheid Security Police ransacked her bedsit. London, an accidental destination, gave her a new life. Having discovered that she possessed zero talent for teaching, she worked for Socialist Commentary, the organ of Socialist Vanguard, the Institute of Race Relations and the Commonwealth Secretariat, where she edited the monthly magazine Commonwealth Currents, wrote booklets, manuals and leaflets, and drafted speeches. Co-founder of the poetry magazine Candelabrum, Gunthorp was also an enthusiastic participant in the LGBT scene - and wrote and wrote.

Two of Dale’s novels, Looking for Ammu (1992) and Georgiana’s Closet (2000), have been published by Virago. Her other works include many poems published in various magazines, a few short stories for anthologies, and one collection of sub-erotic stories, The Flying Hart (Sheba).

Dale and her partner, Julie, moved to Southsea in 2005, in search of a kinder environment for their two young daughters, and joined Tongues and Grooves poetry club. As well as making her an integral part of Portsmouth’s vibrant creative scene, this inspired Dale to produce and co-edit (with Maggie Sawkins and Denise Bennett, the first anthology of poems about Portsmouth, the wonderful This Island City. Tongues and Grooves provided focus and an outlet for Portsmouth’s strong poetry voice, but lacked the resonance of print. So, with encouragement from George Marsh, and with the inspired input of Jon Everitt’s elegant and quirky woodcuts, plus support from Portsmouth News, Portsmouth High School and Fry & Kent – Gunthorp, Sawkins, and Bennett went ahead with a print run of 2.500 copies: a big number for a book of poetry, but it sold well, and does a magnificent job of selling Portsmouth as a poetry-rich city. Its poems are widely represented on the Portsmouth Literary Map. Dale continues to write and to contribute to the city in many ways.

If you have any comments, queries, or suggestions about any of the map entries, please contact the Map Director, Mark Frost: mark.frost@port.ac.uk