Margaret Fensom was born in London UK in 1943 and migrated to Adelaide by steamship in 1947. She now lives in Norwood.

She has published poems in anthologies, including a number of Friendly Street Readers and had children’s stories told on television.

Her short story 'The Keeper of Lost Objects' was highly commended in the 1997 Judah Watten National Storywriting competition and subsequently broadcast on 5UV (Radio Adelaide). Her poems 'Afterwards' and 'Fireworks' won her equal first prize in the 2003 SA International Women’s Day Poetry Competition.

Her short story 'Irish Millennium' was a runner up in the Wirra Wirra Vineyards Short Story Competition and was subsequently published in their anthology 'Party Walls' (Seaview Press 2003). She likes travelling by train and has written an unpublished travel book.

Margaret is listed in the database of SA Women Writers. More of Margaret's work can be seen on her page at Friendly St Poets.

ALMONDS

Almonds bloom

Like moths flying in the night
Almost white as hail
Lying like icy flowers
Upon the ground

Silver soft as moths' wings
And the grey-green grass
That grows on wind swept dunes
The bitter jelly almonds are encased
In furry pods

Waiting waiting
For birds with rainbow feathers
Apple green backs and scarlet berry throats
To eat them in the nick of time

We gather broken shells

Margaret Fensom

Published in Iron Lace, an anthology of writing by students from the 1997 Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing, The University of Adelaide (1998)

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TRAVEL JOURNAL

I have found birds
Hiding among the irises
The pale orange lilies
And blue leaves
Of my journal

Which hides arum lilies
White irises by river
Stone bridges over the Seine
Dreaming afternoons in boats
Pale lochs with mountain shadows
And the turquoise lake of Venice

But how much stranger
Beyond my imagination
Are the flowers which I have never seen
Birds hiding in dreams

Margaret Fensom

Published in Friendly Street Reader 24, Wakefield Press 2000

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