« Wellingborough Stories Festival
Poetry film-making
with Hanna Pecherska
As part of the Wellingborough Stories Festival, Hanna Pecherska took to the streets of Wellingborough to find and film willing locals eager to lend their voices to our recording of Forward Together, a poem written and illustrated by Kremena Dimitrova.
Forward Together
Poem by Kremena Dimitrova in collaboration with Wellingborough’s communities, 26th April 2023.
5 wells
5 rivers
5 weathers
5 strangers
You arrive, we meet
Then depart
They remember
We chart routes… new journeys
Old hopes
I am yearning
My roots –
They unite us
And they keep us apart
New beginnings; new starts
Old longings; new dreams
Where am I belonging
As I move forward
As I reach toward
As I get a step closer
I then turn; I feel in reverse
Here you are sitting
While thinking of there
I traverse; I then return
While thinking of how to atone
While thinking “Do I dare”
Where is додому
Where is my home
If not here, then where
Somewhere
Everywhere
Nowhere
It’s neither close by nor afar
There you are not alone
I too wonder if I am unfitting
Then off I wander
It’s unremitting
5 wells
5 rivers
5 weathers
5 strangers
I arrive, we meet
Then depart
We remember
It’s a new story of which I am a part
Don’t worry; you wave
It’s a new weather; I smile
It has been a while
It’s neither if nor whether
Forward Together