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Guest Editor WENDY COPE introduces her pick of poetry and prose on the theme of water Splish! Splash! Splosh! A friend of mine agreed to judge a children’s poetry competition on the theme of water. He emerged from the flood of manuscripts saying that he never wanted to read those three words again. His experience didn’t deter me from agreeing to edit a section of Mslexia on the same theme. I knew I wouldn’t be inundated by splish-splash-sploshes. The invitation arrived on a hot day in August and the idea of reading a lot of stuff about water was very appealing. I imagined descriptions of peaceful, idyllic beaches and turquoise swimming-pools. That was before I saw the submission guidelines ‘wet and wild, tears and torrents, swimming and drowning.’ My heart sank, but not for long. After all, if I want peaceful idyllic beaches etc., I can read the travel supplements of the weekend papers and, believe me, I do. Water. It’s a huge subject, a nice open theme, allowing for tremendous scope and variety. There were stories and poems about the sea, inland waterways, waterfalls, rain, floods, tears. And, yes, swimming-pools. About sailing, fishing, drinking and washing. About plumbers and baptism. And about drowning or near-drowning – so much of this that when I went swimming I felt unusually nervous in the deep end. For the complete essay, and for Wendy's full selection of poetry and prose on the theme of water, read issue 11 • Subscribe! |
 Read a short story chosen by Wendy Cope: Smoke that thunders by Cathy McSporran  |
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For more on WENDY COPE, go to www.contemporarywriters.com |
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