The next part of our series responds to the government’s plans for a phased reopening of schools from June with advice and recommendations for all those not going back to school from Suzanne Jessel.
Read morePoem Of The Week, Week 6: April '63 - a translation by Martyn Crucefix
The last poem we’d like to share with you this week is April ‘63, which is Marytn Crucefix’s translation of a German poem by Peter Huchel.
April ‘63
Looking up from the chopping-block
under a light rain,
with axe in hand,
I see up there in the wide boughs
five young jays.
In silence, they chase, they indicate
from branch to branch,
pointing a way for the sun
through the hazy undergrowth.
And a fiery tongue flashes among the trees.
I make my bed
in the icy hollow of my years.
I split logs,
the tough splintery wood of isolation.
And I settle myself
among spiders’ webs,
deepening further the desolation of the shed,
among the odours of pine
piled rough-cuts with axe in hand.
Looking up from the chopping-block
in warm April rain,
I see leafless
horse-chestnut boughs,
their sticky sheaths
of buds shine.
Crucefix’s most recent publications include, ‘Cargo of Limbs’ (Hercules Editions). His most recent blog posts can be found here.
Poem Of The Week, Week 6: Dog Years by Mo Gallaccio
Second up we have Dog Years by Mo Gallaccio -
Dog Years
My young friend Finlay has a dog.
He did me a drawing-
Ella, Patterdale terrier, 74 years.
He tells me...she’s really seventy-seven but
he didn’t want to rub it out and spoil the picture
and she lives seven or maybe it’s eleven (?)
years to every one of his.
I put her portrait on my wall
and note we are the same age.
She looks very sprightly
ears cocked, tail held high
nose up, alert - present.
Time is so very fluid, Ella
don’t you find? An hour
can drag on a whole day,
yet months and years flash
past all in a blink and memory
is so fickle, moments from years ago
fixed, every detail clear
but what I read or ate or did
last week - a blur.
Words slip out of reach
names and faces come adrift
I do acknowledge folk, but who they are
and how we met’s a mystery.
I am become so grumpy Ella
I miss that little optimist, my younger self
filled with curiosity and wonder, sometimes
fearful, often not understanding
ut full of trust and an unshakeable
belief in justice. A clear eyed
seven-year old. Age is just a number
Ella, I’ll take a lead from you
trade in my life-lived years
banish this weary cynic
become child-like again.
I’m with you Ella - I choose
to be alert. I will be present.
Poem Of The Week, Week 6: Keepers of the States of Sleep and Wakefulness, fragment from A Masque, by Kate Miller
To kick-start week 6 of Poem Of The Week we have Keepers of the States of Sleep and Wakefulness, fragment from A Masque by Kate Miller. We have embedded a pdf of the poem into the blog post to do justice to its form-
Kate Miller lives in East Dulwich and this poem belongs to her forthcoming collection The Long Beds published by Carcanet in July 2020. She recorded it during Covid-19 lockdown with a dedication to nurses of the NHS, especially the eight named night nurses who cared for her in isolation at Kings College Hospital some years earlier. You can watch Kate’s audio recording of this poem below-
Poem Of The Week, Week 5: Assimilation by Jane McLaughlin
The last poem we’d like to share with you this week is Assimilation by Jane McLaughlin-
Assimilation
It is important to learn the language
What is your name?
They took my name at the border
I have filled in the forms to get another.
Where do you live?
I live in a street where pomegranates flower
and birds and children sing at evening.
I live in a pile of white rubble.
I live for four days without food on a jolting truck.
I live on a mattress in my friend’s room.
Tell your partner something about yourself.
I tell my partner my right eye does not trust my left
and if I have two hands I am afraid
that one will kill the other.
What do you do at the weekend?
At the weekend I lie on my mattress
and listen to that silence that follows
gunfire and the fall of shells.
In the darkness I still cross borders
in strange clothes, leave friends and lover
where they fall.
At weekends I remember
I am the one who got through
and have nothing to carry except their names.
I watch the roof of a prison
that keeps closing over me.
Please listen to this conversation.
It’s about asking the way.
From the poetry collection Lockdown published by Cinnamon Press