Erato

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Friday Poem – ‘Dogwoman’ by Deryn Rees-Jones

This week’s Friday Poem is the opening page of the sequence ‘Dogwoman’ by Deryn Rees-Jones. ‘Dogwoman’ draws on the work of Portuguese artist Paula Rego, who passed away earlier this week. It first appeared in Deryn’s collection Burying the Wren, and later in What It’s Like to Be Alive: Selected Poems.

This cover shows a drawing by the artist Paula Rego of three children leaping in the air. The text reads: Deryn Rees-Jones What It's Like To Be Alive Selected Poems

What It’s Like to Be Alive: Selected Poems brings together poems from five of Deryn Rees-Jones’s early collections: The Memory Tray, Signs Round a Dead Body, Quiver, Burying the Wren, and And You, Helen. We see the arc of development in her writing as she visits and revisits the concerns that are the mainstay of her writing: memory, love, desire, and heartbreak in all its manifestations. The cover features a drawing by Paula Rego.

Dogwoman after Paula Rego No one can love this horror, no one can want it. I’m crouched between my own thighs, with my dog heart and my dog soul. For now I’m a woman brought up by dogs, bitch in the muck and the blood and the dirt. For once, now, I’ve got no words, and look – I’m trampling my bed, I’m baying at the moon. And no one can hear me, with my skirts pulled up, head back as my eyes roll. Look. I’m swallowing sorrow. No one can hear me in spite of the howls. * I am lying on my back, my legs outsplayed. That would be my dog-look, now, I’m giving you, my half-cock, something askance and going to hell, take me/leave me, inbreath, outbreath. Trembling, I’m all upturned. Heart-hit, flesh-bound, saying love love in a ring of devotion. Here’s my dogbelly with its small pink teats. I’m waiting for the pressure of your well-shaped hand. * Now dog’s the divine. Strange thought. Dancing on hind legs, head to one side, and the face of her master. Dog sudden, well-met. Dog sitting, dog listening, dog running with big joy and ghost dogs on the fields now with her. Dog blur, hellhound, dog shaking, hare-bound; dog in the wind, sky-bound. (Once, attendant in my blue dress, I hadn’t the words to call you back.) Dog in the snow, dog in the sea. Dog glorious, glories herself. Dog racing with gleam and thunder. Best friend. Neither fish nor fowl. Just for this moment hound bliss.

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What It’s Like to Be Alive is available on the Seren website: £12.99

Burying the Wren is available on the Seren website: £9.99

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Friday Poem – ‘I know Exactly the Sort of Woman I’d Like to Fall in Love With’ by Deryn Rees-Jones

This Sunday (8th March) is International Women’s Day so this week we bring you the poem ‘I know Exactly the Sort of Woman I’d Like to Fall in Love With’ by Deryn Rees-Jones which is featured the Women’s Work anthology but was first published in Deryn’s debut collection The Memory Tray.

women's work 2016

With over 250 contributors, this generous selection of poetry by women with an emphasis on twentieth-century poetry in English features poets from all over the world. Arranged by thematic chapters that touch on various aspects of modern life, it aims to be a touchstone of women’s thoughts and experiences; to be entertaining and relevant as well as inclusive and representative of some of the best poetry published now.

 

Women’s Work is available on the Seren website: £14.99

Deryn’s most recent collection Erato was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy direct from us.