The Necropolis

When I walked into the necropolis
at Genoa I saw that every grave

had been allocated a panettone
and because the Council was in

broad terms a coalition of the left
every panettone was in a red box

and because every panettone
was in a red box I had a hunch

the old Maoist-Leninist-Stalinist
front were calling a meeting

with the dead and because the
dead were bored of being dead

they clapped and shouted
like nuns who have discovered

the libido and because nuns
have discovered the libido

I am going to bring the poem
to a sudden end. Sleep well!

by Julian Stannard

‘Necropolis’ is copyright © Julian Stannard, 2014. It is reprinted from The Street of Perfect Love (Worple Press, 2014) by permission of Worple Press.

Notes from Worple Press:

Julian Stannard spent many years teaching American and English Literature at the University of Genoa. He has a PhD from UEA and is now a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. Previous publications include Rina’s War (Peterloo, 2001), The Red Zone (Peterloo, 2007) and The Parrots of Villa Gruber Discover Lapis Lazuli (Salmon, 2011). He co-edited The Palm Beach Effect: Reflections on Michael Hofmann (CB Editions, 2013). He was awarded the Troubadour Prize in 2010 and reviews for the TLS, the Guardian and Poetry Review.

To read more about Julian’s new chapbook, visit the Worple website. You can also follow Julian on Twitter, and read more of his work on the Poetry Foundation website.

Worple Press was founded by Peter and Amanda Carpenter in 1997 and publishes 6-8 books a year by new and established poets: collections, pamphlets, works in translation, essays, interviews. Early authors included Iain Sinclair, Joseph Woods, Beverley Bie Brahic, Kevin Jackson and the acclaimed American nature poet Peter Kane Dufault. Recent collections (2014/2015) include Andy Brown’s Exurbia, Isabel Galleymore’s Dazzle Ship, Martyn Crucefix’s A Hatfield Mass, Julian Stannard’s The Street of Perfect Love, and Clive Wilmer’s Urban Pastorals. More information can be found at the publisher’s website, and 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.