Friday Poem Archives - Page 46 of 46

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Simon appleby

Friday Poem – A Birthmother’s Catechism

This Friday’s poem, A Birthmothers Catechism, comes from Carrie Etter’s collection Imagined Sons. The giving up of a first-born son for adoption is the central story, and the way the ramifications of this act echo down the years through the protagonist’s life is movingly embodied. The poems describe various scenes in which the son is ‘encountered’. They are sometimes straight-forwardly realistic, almost like film clips; then there are dream slices full of surreal images; brief comedies or tragedies; and short lyrical laments. This is one of those brave, rare and heartfelt books that will stay with the reader. It has both a compelling urgency and a passionate purpose.

A Birthmother’s Catechism

What do you want?

After twenty hours on trains, I stand on the platform
and stare at I know not what

What do you want?

Rub the leaves between your fingers and smell a ripe lemon

What do you want?

When a stranger compares her mortgage to signing away
her firstborn, I nod and cannot speak

What do you want?

The hangman sold the rope by the inch as a panacea

What do you want?

Houndstooth daisies, in a small, extended fist

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/179439755″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

Get Carrie Etter’s Imagined Sons here

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Simon appleby

Friday Poem – Sea’s Answer

This Friday’ poem, Sea’s Answer, comes from Sheenagh Pugh’s new collection Short Days, Long Shadows. Taking inspiration from the Shetland Islands, these poems are steeped in the wilder weathers and views of rugged coastlines, sweeping sea-vistas and the hardy historical characters who have inhabited these lands. There is a lovely pared-down spareness, and elegiac formality to these poems, mixed with plenty of humour, and Sheenagh has as much to offer the general reader as it does the specialist, who will admire her artful use of traditional forms.

Sea’s Answer

I was talking to the sea the other day,
(you get that way, at my age)
and I said, I wish I knew why,

when I figure you, every image
fails me. They are, after all, accurate,
for what that’s worth: the scalloped edge

of lace, the beaten metal sheet,
pewter under cloud, copper at sunrise,
the pleated silk, anyone can see it,

and if they have been seen by many eyes,
still they are none the less true
the thousandth time. I don’t believe in clichés;

words don’t just stop working. But you
swallow each likeness, each true word
and spit it out, rejected; how

does that work?
Its stony throat wide,
the sea yawned, breathed out with the hawk
of a consumptive, and answered

“I am not like anything; you speak
of things made or named in my honour,
out of your own hunger, to be like
me. I am myself the metaphor.”

Get Short Days, Long Shadows here. Save 20% when you join our online book club.

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Simon appleby

Friday Poem – MIG–21 Raids at Shegontola

This Friday’s poem, MIG–21 Raids at Shegontola, comes from Mir Mahufuz Ali’s debut collection Midnight, Dhaka. Rich in visual and aural descriptions, Mahfuz writes with a shocking directness about the atrocities he witnessed as a child in war-torn Bangladesh. In later poems his trauma becomes transformative, and his poetry the key to unlocking memories of a childhood that are rich in nuance, gorgeous in detail and evocative of a beautiful country. They celebrate the human capacity for love, survival and renewal.

MIG–21 Raids at Shegontola won the 2013 Geoffrey Dermer Prize for poetry. Mahfuz will be accepting the MDA award for best contribution to the Arts by an Asian artist presented by Julie Morgan, Am at a ceremony in Cardiff on 8th November.

MIG–21 Raids at Shegontola

Only this boy moves
between the runes of trees
on his tricycle
when an egle swoops,
releases two arrows
from it’s silver wings and melts
away faster than lightning.
Then a loud whistle
and a bang like dry thunder.
In a blink the boy sees
his house roof sink,
feel his ears ripped off.
The blast puffs up a fawn of smoke
bigger than a mountain cloud.
The slow begonias rattle
their scarlet like confetti.
Metal Slashes
the trees and ricochets.
Wires and pipes snap
at the roots, quiver.
The whirling smoke packed
witch bricks and cement,
chicken feathers and nigella seeds.
When the cloud begins
to settle on the ground,
the boy makes out buckled iron rods.
White soot descents
as he finds himseld dressed
like an apprentice baker.

Get 20% off Midnight, Dhaka when you join our online book club.

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Simon appleby

Friday’s Poem – A Birthmother’s Catechism (September 11, 1986)

This Friday’s poem, A Birthmother’s Catechism (September 11, 1986), comes from Carrie Etter’s collection Imagined Sons, A book of vivid, heartbreaking poems on the experience of giving up a child for adoption. Etter imagines the possible destinies for the child and presents us with various scenarios from the tragic to the absurd: a baker, a surfer, a rapist, even the olive in her Greek salad. Dispersed among these narratives are the ‘Birthmother’s Catechisms’, These narratives provide numerous answers to persistent questions, How did you let him go? What is the anniversary of loss?

A Birthmother’s Catechism (September 11, 1986)