Month: October 2011

The Tadpole Goddess

~ oxfordbrookesuni

My Lethe, motionless between green thickets
Where flags prick up their rust-stained saffron ears,
You hear no splash of oars, no dust-up of lost souls
Except for dragon-flies a-spin, and tadpoles
That hang like little mud-bubbles, expecting
Their childhood gloom to lift, and life bounce up in them.
Your spirit’s airless, Lethe; boot-top-deep,
You’re less ditch than a mouthful of saliva
Drained by a dental tube. So why this leaning
To breathe into your film of suspect glitters,
And leave my slutty kiss? The final flutter on
Posterity? Perhaps a faster current
Washes the tubers, where my hair would tangle
And pass, and finally drag me to pure water.
I’d travel free of earth, rapid and weightless
And miles out of my depth, my shadow flinging
north and north, my coughed-up lungs your rattles
To play with till their fragments swam like tadpoles.
I’d find my cold Elysium, and to keep.

by Carol Rumens

‘The Tadpole Goddess’ is copyright © Carol Rumens, 2010. It is reprinted from De Chirico’s Threads, published by Seren Books, 2010.

A poet, novelist, translator, and editor, Carol Rumens was born in South London in 1944. She started writing at school and went on to study (and drop out from) a philosophy degree at London University. She has won many awards for her writing and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Rumens’s latest collection, De Chirico’s Threads, features a play-for-voices about the life of the painter Giorgio de Chirico, as well as a number of occasional poems, such as ‘The Tadpole Goddess’. You can read a number of other poems from the new collection at the link to the book above. In addition to her own work, Carol Rumens selects and comments upon another poet’s writing each week in her blog on the Guardian website here. She also maintains a website here.

Seren is based in Wales (‘Seren’ means ‘star’ in Welsh) and recently celebrated its 30th birthday. Begun as an offshoot of the magazine Poetry Wales by Cary Archard and Dannie Abse in the latter’s garage in Ogmore-by-Sea, the press has now grown and employs a number of staff. It is known for publishing prize-winning poetry, including collections by recent Forward winners, Hilary Menos and Kathryn Simmonds, as well as books by Owen Sheers, Pascale Petit, Deryn Rees-Jones, and many others. The fiction list features a new title by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, that was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The high-quality arts books include the recent collaboration between the poet John Fuller and the photographer David Hurn, Writing the Picture. For more details about Seren, visit the publisher’s new website, where there is a blog about Seren’s news and events. You can also find Seren on Facebook and on Twitter: @SerenBooks.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

Young John Clare

~ oxfordbrookesuni

                                   Helpston, Northamptonshire, 1806

Not often do I find a nest fallen
Among seed pods in autumn, three blue-white
Eggs broken, rags of rucked and yellow flesh
And hinge of beak still beckoning ants, but
One egg sealed, the fluids of birdmaking
A milky galaxy bundled inside—
So smooth and dry I want to swivel it
Wholly into my mouth despite dirt-flecks,
Leave the vowel-sheen off the oval shell,
Tumble that globule of starling within
Until its unspooled trill begins to boil,
Slips its bony case and kindles my voice.
O then would I sing! I would have no choice.

by Michael Waters

Welcome to the Poetry Centre’s new series of Weekly Poems. As always, we are most grateful to our publishers for providing us with such good work, and encourage you to read widely amongst their authors. If you use social media and haven’t already ‘liked’ us on Facebook, do look up our page here, and then follow us on Twitter by searching for @brookespoetry. We hope you enjoy this year’s selection of poems.

‘Young John Clare’ is copyright © Michael Waters, 2011. It is reprinted from Gospel Night, published by BOA Editions, 2011.

Michael Waters’ previous book, Darling Vulgarity, was a finalist for the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has published ten collections of poetry, including five from BOA Editions. In 2004, he chaired the poetry panel for the National Book Awards. He is Professor of English at Monmouth University and also teaches in the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation. Waters lives with his wife, poet Mihaela Moscaliuc, in Ocean, NJ.

You can watch a video of Michael Waters at a BOA event reading from this collection at this page, and read an interview with him at poetrynet.org.

BOA Editions, Ltd., a not-for-profit publisher of poetry and other literary works, fosters readership and appreciation of contemporary literature.  By identifying, cultivating, and publishing both new and established poets and selecting authors of unique literary talent, BOA brings high quality literature to the public.  Support for this effort comes from the sale of its publications, grant funding, and private donations. This year BOA celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary. To find out more about BOA Editions, click here. You can also find BOA on Facebook, and on Twitter by searching for @boaeditions.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.