For Angela Carter

At night, the Korrigan’s silkworm
hair lit up the dandelion seeds,
he made stars retract their claws.
By day, his hair was brittle white,
his eyes two eggs of dried-out blood.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass,
the hair, the eyes, must all come off.

At night, he buried his treasure under
the heaving stomach of the dolmen:
love that shined like a trout’s back.
By day, the gold transformed to dust,
and cork, and skins of spiders.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass,
the heart, the lungs, must be cut off.

At night, his voice was smooth as yolk,
he sang of the moon, but not of God,
he scaled, he furred across the range.
By day, his voice muttered and squeaked,
A mousey phlegm played hide and seek.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass,
the songs, the sounds, must be plucked off.

by Claire Trévien

Happy Easter to all our readers! This week’s poet, Claire Trévien, will be launching her new collection, The Shipwrecked House, on Thursday 11 April with a reading at 7.30pm at the Albion Beatnik Bookshop in Oxford. The evening will also feature readings by fellow poets Alan Buckley and Amy Key. There are more details on our Facebook page and on Claire’s own website here.

‘Wipe the blade clean on the grass’ is copyright © Claire Trévien, 2013. It is reprinted by permission of Penned in the Margins from The Shipwrecked House (Penned in the Margins, 2013).

Notes from Penned in the Margins:

Claire Trévien was born in 1985 in Brittany. She is a poet, critic, and literary translator. Her writing has been published in a wide variety of literary magazines including Under The Radar, Poetry Salzburg Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Warwick Review, Nth Position, and Fuselit. She has published an e-chapbook of poetry with Silkworms Ink, Patterns of Decay, and a pamphlet, Low-Tide Lottery with Salt Publishing. She is the editor of Sabotage Reviews and Noises Off. The Shipwrecked House is her first book, and was published this month. You can read more about it at the Penned in the Margins site here, and follow Claire Trévien’s work on her blog here and on Twitter here.

Penned in the Margins is an independent publisher and live literature producer specialising in poetry and based in East London. Founded in 2004, the company has produced numerous literature and performance events, toured several successful live literature shows, published over twenty-five books, and continues to run innovative poetry, arts and performance projects in the capital and beyond. Their recent anthology, Adventures in Form, was awarded a Special Commendation by the Poetry Book Society and was chosen as one of 50 Best Summer Reads by The Independent. You can visit the Penned in the Margins website here to sign up to the mailing list, and follow the publisher on Facebook and Twitter.

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.