Thursday 10 November 2011

another dark poem!

My younger daughter always questions me as to why I write such dark poems when I am a happy person! The answer is that sometimes they just happen! This one came when I saw my own shadow but felt it had its own form apart from me.


shadows bleed over my feet and into
my heart , as I walk the path home.

grey shapes seep around me
as fears  take form -
they accompany  me, face me,
below, in front,
in the cracked spaces.
I see them.
as they vanish,
reappearing  in different places
caught between the fading light .
Somewhere they are real,
 I could touch them,
suck them in and taste them
as they chill my veins.

A sudden light, a curtain opens
and they are gone; only I know
they are there - always behind me
they have strangled my own shadow
and taken its place,
inseparable,
engorging
me.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

interconnectedness

So I am now doing a taught Masters in English through the OU and loving it! Antigone and intertextuality , translation and diaspora here we come! But in my journey I am coming across such interesting connections and here is one I want to capture. In studying what Paz has to say about translation he illustrates with a poet whose  inherent experiences  bleed into the new text - he cites Wallace Stevens and his lines of poetry resonated with me immediately, Then I was looking at Twitter as is my wont at the moment and I followed a link to Christopher Reid, ex editor of Faber and Faber who has a new book coming out in February, In an article about him, his old tutor at Oxford said that he learned about Wallace Stevens from the young undergraduate Reid. Here is Reid's description of poets like Stevens - " they write about reality but in slightly fantasised and disguised terms. There was a metaphorical and allegorical inventiveness in them "
It is strange how someone else's words come to you just when you are seeking them - that is how I would describe my style and indeed I wish I had had them in my pocket when I was asked at the Poetry Library fair what kind of poetry I write! Fascinating connections!