Agata Palmer

Agata Palmer is a bi-lingual poet born in Gdynia, Poland in 1965. She trained as a linguist and for many years worked as a teacher, interpreter and translator. She now lives in Bristol, developing her writing and performance skills, working as a hypnotherapist, NLP master coach, yoga teacher and holistic therapist. Her writing is influenced by the poetry of Polish Nobel Laureate, Wisława Szymborska.

Paper publications:

• A solo chapbook From the Land of Marmite with Love, Exiled Writers Ink 2021
• In a pandemic anthology The Weather Indoors, Tangent Books 2021

Online:

• UK Alba, A Journal of Short Poetry (Ravena Press: 2020)
• Germany international literary magazine Beyond Words, 2021
• US Eris & Eros Review 2021

Pulse (first published by Tangent Books 2021)

Her panting gives steady rhythm
to our quiet, empty days.
Too empty, so I teach yoga and
give, give,
give, give,
give, give,
over zoom – of course – a hundred
sessions in the first sixty days.
It props me with purpose, you see.
She snores through each meditation.

The beat of her tail hitting the floor,
is the response to sweet nothings I say,
a metronome of our simple joy
the pulse that’s keeping me sane.

She’s wagging, I’m missing my people,
we are barking lonely together.

Daily figures quote a sharp rise –
for many, their vital pulse will stop.

The throb of her paws on the wooden floor
is the drumroll for our walk, the passport
to the outdoors, the daily alibi
for me and the dog, my only certainty,
my shrink extraordinaire.