This week’s Friday Poem is ‘[ correspondence : another year ]’ by Sammy Weaver from her pamphlet Angola, America which won the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Competition.
Angola, America, winner of the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2021, takes its name from a prison in Louisiana in the southern United Sates. In these strikingly original, thoroughly contemporary, and deeply moving poems, we are immersed in the world the inmates must endure. From the first poem, when we witness a home-made tattoo and understand that this scarring and incision is a “map in the connective tissue of pain and loss”, we are drawn into this world in a way that is carefully observed and beautifully empathetic.
![[ correspondence : another year ]
the grey static of the dashboard ignites into a ringtone
ignites into a w
oman’s voice pale-polite
as a white picket fence in the still of morning:
hello, this is a free call from ______
an incarcerated individual at louisiana state penitentiary,
this call is not pr
ivate & may be monitored,
you may start the conversation now
& the line ignites into song as you sing to me
happy birthday & because birth is death in reverse
i imag
ine blowing a candle out backwards, sucking
the orange talons into the prison of my lungs,
the w
ax congealing up the wick, the match lying
down in its box, the rush of our bodies diminishing
inside the bodies of our mothers](https://serenbooks.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/screenshot-2023-01-25-at-12.03.25.png)
Angola, America is available on the Seren website: £6.00
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Join us online from 7:30pm on Thursday 2nd February to hear Sammy Weaver reading from Angola, America alongside Kathryn Bevis at Seren Virtual First Thursday. Tickets are £2 (plus Eventbrite admin fee).
![[ search ]
In the beginning the guard’s gloved hands
pat you down, searching for weapons,
his touch is weaponized, the muted duty
of his movements smooth along each of your arms.
Soon the guard’s touch is the only touch
from another
and you think of your mother
after bath time, the harbour of her chest
against yours, the rough-love of her towelling
you dry, reaching into all the nooks
and crannies, no cabbages behind the ears
she says. And yes, I guess searching the body
is another way of saying the body is a trove
of treasure and your touch a torch.](https://serenbooks.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/search-sammy-weaver.png)
