swan song

 

When I iron the white cotton shirts, slide creases
from collar, cuff and tail, I weigh the heft and fullness
of a changing power.

The dragon noses mother of pearl, and her hot breath
insinuates the twisted threads which swell
and straighten as she sighs.

My mind spins graveyard nettles, and I
am the sister of swans, accused, condemned and bound
in silence, intent on my task.

Each sleeve, a spread wing, offers hope.

Then he dons the white shirt, puts on
the power suit and quiet socks; he knots a careful tie
and slips his feet into immaculate brogues.

I would be Leda to his Jove.

 
 
(This poem won the 2007 Barnet Open Poetry Competition, judged by Fleur Adcock. I see that it is online on the Barnet Arts website without any formatting, so I thought I’d post it here as it should appear.)

don’t confuse the slaughtered pig

list of search phrases
blog standard searches

WordPress – which is where this blog is hosted – provide statistics so bloggers can see how many readers they have and what brings them to the site.

I’m intrigued by the readers who arrive from search engines looking for specific things.

Or, more accurately, I’m intrigued by the things they are looking for. The image on the left shows the most popular search strings from a couple of days ago.

The variety of ways that people think of for searching for the same basic idea fascinates me. But, after all, if there’s more than one way to kill a cat, there’s probably more than one way to slaughter a pig.
Continue reading “don’t confuse the slaughtered pig”

house of cards

The second image that I wanted to talk about from my conversation with the poet Joan Margarit dealt with the writing process. (See yesterday’s post for the first.)

Joan described how the poet often writes early drafts of a poem to include more than is needed. We cram stuff in just to see if it fits. Subsequent drafts entail removing bits carefully, like pulling out cards one by one from a card house.

When the structure comes tumbling down, you know you’ve found the point at which you should have stopped.
Continue reading “house of cards”

last year’s cat

I said the next post would be more about poetry, but if it is, this page is going to begin to be very boringly text-heavy. So here’s a quick seasonal picture to brighten it up:

What do you mean, 'bonfire'?
What do you mean, 'bonfire'?
The photo was taken last year and this cat is no longer with us. The rest of the semi-feral family are doing exactly the same with this year’s leaves, though.

new every reading

Some years ago, I spent a very pleasant morning in a bar in Madrid talking to Joan Margarit, the Catalán poet. There are two particular images he used in the conversation that I remember. (Note that it was some eight years ago, we were speaking in Spanish, and I no longer have the notes I made at the time. So, the following is my take on what he said rather than direct quotation.)

Joan described poetry as being like a musical score that the poet writes; and he described the reader as the musician who then “interprets” the piece. Continue reading “new every reading”