publications

I write poetry for publication and performance; as song-lyrics; and for exhibition in visual art forms of my own creation, or in collaboration with others.

I also run poetry and creative writing workshops, classes and courses. Details and dates of these are in the 'events' section of this site.

I am a committee member of 'Moor Poets' which is a community based, poetry training and development network.

I am committed to promoting the profile of poetry and poets in society: to encourage the potential of poetry to affirm cultural identity and expression; to enable personal and community development; to enrich mainstream education and influence other establishments.

Occasionally, I organise independent poetry events with other poets, and with poet Mim Darlington, as 'The Honey Tongues'.

In Devon where I am based, there are many communities of poets and collaborative projects thrive, as does a strong ethos of mutual support, friendship, and vive la difference.

I perform poetry best suited to performance; seek publication elsewhere for words best enjoyed from the page; and use extracts from these or produce new work, or provide 'found' poetry, for individual or collaborative work in visual arts media.

"A wonderfully accessible, life-affirming poet with great range, bold imagery, warmth and wit. I'd recommend anyone to listen to Lucy Lepchani'

I am currently working (slowly!) towards completing an anthology of short stories and a first novel.

One by one I named all of the butterflies in the pictures, some of which I had learned to identify only the evening before, from the same book; and some of which were almost as familiar as my own family. Dad’s eyes twinkled with delight; he loved it when I got things right.

“Well done, lad. Well done. Do you know, when I was a boy in India, some of these butterflies were exotic to me. Here, they’re all over the bloody place! Annie, he got them all right, isn’t that good?”

“Mmm, lovely,” said my mother, more interested in the pages of her Mills and Boon novel “perhaps he should have some pocket-money to go to the shops.” She was near the end of her book, and we recognized the expression, the posture, the small flicker of her steely grey eyes as they beamed into the pages. It meant: “Do not disturb me. Interrupt at your peril.”

“Half-a-crown,” said Dad, “and yes, you can spend it all on sweets if you like. Just don’t worry about your teeth all falling out, at least you know all your butterflies.” Dad, proud and awkward, gave me the coin he fished from his pocket.

“Can you get some shopping too, Michael?” said Mum, in a distant, faraway tone. “Give him a fiver, Viknesh, there’s a list in the kitchen.”

“A fiver? How much shopping you bloody want him to get?” and Dad walked out of the room. I stood before Mum, uncomfortably turning over the half-a-crown in my hand. She looked up at me briefly and smiled, then turned back to her book.

“Will my football kit be ready for Monday, Mum? I put it in the wash yesterday eve…” She interrupted with a loud sigh, and without looking up, said:

“There’s a whole weekend’s shop here. He can’t bloody carry all this by…”

“We’ll drive to the supermarket. Doesn’t look much like we’re doing anything else this bloody weekend, does it?” Mum didn’t answer, or even look up at Dad. She turned a page gracefully.

“Get your jacket, Michael. You have to help me. Come on, let’s go.” Dad took his jacket from the peg in the hall and turned to leave the house. He was angry, but he was letting it simmer down rather than boil up. Mum, she was like ice. I knew she was angry but I didn’t know why, and the fact that she held it inside her, poised and brittle, scared me.

published in the short story anthology 'Shoe Fly Baby' (Bloomsbury, isbn 0-7475-6686-0) 2004 and won second prize in The Asham Literary Awards, 2003/4)

An armada of aunties, floral sails
rippling on swaying hips
appeared out of hot-engine magic-hat cars
and marveled at the sight of each other.

Sporting perennial shampoo-and-sets, and
familiar handbags dangled from
plump elbows; arms curved in mighty hugs,
while scarlet, fuschia, and orange lips puckered and pecked.

They swooped down on us children like
billowing storm-clouds of flesh
squeezing and measuring, choking us with
gardenia and Eau-de-Cologne vapours
and the dusky pink scent of face-powder.

These soft-dough invincibles
were ballast in my childhood’s fragile hull,
while my brittle parents wrecked every chance
and then each other
on rock after treacherous rock.

A mainstay of earth-mothers in Marks and Spencer cardies,
they bore the glory of our ancestry;
with thighs that could lean great monoliths upright,
the courage to have ridden alongside Boudicca,
the skills to feed the five thousand with
nothing more than handbag mints,
and the wisdom to cleanse us all of sin
with a soft, white, spittle-edged handkerchief.

They brought the future, gift-wrapped
with their tales of ‘good old days’,
unraveled in the songs of our great-grandmothers
and a legacy of whispered, secret heirlooms.

Drawing up the map for my future,
they fussed, they flapped, they kissed again
and there, beneath, lay buried treasure:
where every X marked the spot.

The zig-zag of their consonants
buzz and curve as if
they have sawed their language,
sharp with silver tongues.

I tell this to Ania
and she translates the joke to friends.
Laughter scatters - the same in any language.

Illuminating the mettle of self
he feasts us with mysteries
wrought from flame and forge-wrung sweat
and spirit that leaps from the dark.

His hammer-head, chipped from Thor’s own
beats on anvil’s back
in Hell-sprung heat:

evoking the ringing of magical metalwork
chiming and rhyming in echoing air

and from it summons
his heart’s dark art
transmuting the pig-headed
smoulder-fist bulk
with the graft
and grip of his craft

and with tempering, tempering, tempering:

he tenderly shapes where the furnace-eye blaze
and the genius grace of his hands.

From the humid glass-house empires
to the subtle spring-time border,
the genius of gardeners
has set its house in order
as a thousand busy shovels and a million pairs of hands
have transplanted and transported fleets of flora through the land.

There were juggernauts of jasmine
there were trucks transporting trees
and palettes of petunias
that scent the May-time breeze;
there were lorry-loads of lavender, and every perfect rose
tearing swiftly down the motorways to Chelsea’s Flower show.

Now here, are dainty flower-heads;
exotic, gaudy blooms;
and countless, coloured flower-beds
expiring sweet perfumes,
offset by architecture and experimental art,
here in Chelsea, at the flower-show,
a tonic for the heart.

The crowds all gasp, and wonder;
they say ‘wow!’ cry ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s
and they’ll dream of floribunda
when they leave in trains and cars.
Time passes; flowers wither; leaves will fall and petals fade:
but Chelsea lives forever in the glory that was made.

Won first prize, Chelsea Flower Show Poetry Competition 2005

September Sonnet

September spans her languid days
to autumn’s edge, in Midas’ thrall
and summer ember-glows where rays
spin kindled light beneath their fall.
This polished drama rests and plays
on centre stage, as each and all
things underneath the still, blue gaze
applaud in bronzed resplendent sprawl.
Then, clouds roll in and change the scene
as new percussions strike the breeze
to challenge all that once was green
and sketch stark backdrops of the trees:
stripped bare by North Wind’s wild burlesque -
to twisted wisps of arabesque

From 'Seeing the Wood Through the Trees' exhibition, High Moorland Visitor Centre, Dartmoor

Volcano hot and red as lobster
Billy’s fast car gleams and shines,
beat-box throbs in hot-rod dragster
engine whirrs a throaty whine.

Billy’s pride and race-track joy
has reputation far and fast,
icon that makes man a boy
and king, from back-street kid, at last.

If Son-of-God was six feet tall
if Billy’s beaming grin was stars
if chequered flag was Lord of All -
the world would worship racing cars

but CO2 fumes take their toll
and oil bleeds nations into wars
and Billy wonders that his soul
should race towards a greater cause.

And how his sweetheart frets and fusses!
How her fears feed storms and strife!
She wants to buy a fleet of buses
live a cleaner, greener life.

Billy can’t give up the races
can’t give up the speed or thrills
knows the finish line he faces -
all alone. Truth hurts. Speed kills.

My Grandmother in Sikkim
is dust, and is scattered to the wind.
Footprints she left in mountain snow
have run to rivers, long ago.

Those lands of her ancestral home
hold faded whispers of her bones -
and yet across time’s span I hear
and feel her presence standing near,

and moments from her life unfold
to speak in my mind, voiceless told.
They rise to thrive from hidden dark
and light a fire with vivid spark

as history within me, stirs,
embraces passions that were hers
and images I have never known
wake memories as if were my own.

They echo like an ancient song;
call to my heart, beat to belong
where orchids spill and magnolias rise
where ice-white pinnacles pierce the sky .

No breadth of land that spans this earth
divides us, nor will death or birth;
connection to all kith and kin
belongs always, beyond the skin.

The past is not lost, it is just mislaid
by deals that time and truth once made,
and prayers whispered long ago
still have their own force, their own flow

to cleanse the wounds that lies arranged
with tongues that speak, for peaceful change.
No Empire now, to stem that flood.
Myths reawaken in my blood.

All works, in part or in full, are copyright and may not be reproduced in any medium, without permission from the author.