In That Year

And in that year my body was a pillar of smoke
and even his hands could not hold me.

And in that year my mind was an empty table
and he laid his thoughts down like dishes of plenty.

And in that year my heart was the old monument,
the folly, and no use could be found for it.

And in that year my tongue spoke the language
of insects and not even my father knew me.

And in that year I waited for the horses
but they only shifted their feet in the darkness.

And in that year I imagined a vain thing;
I believed that the world would come for me. 

And in that year I gave up on all the things
I was promised and left myself to sadness. 

And then that year lay down like a path
and I walked it, I walked it, I walk it.  

by Kim Moore

News from the Centre: the Poetry Centre’s International Poetry Competition awards event took place last Friday. If you couldn’t make it, you can watch the ceremony (and hear readings from the winning poets, local poets, and by Hannah Lowe) on the Brookes website . The event begins about 14.30 into the film.

Dr Niall Munro, Director of the Centre, appeared with Prof Langdon Hammer on the Dan Schneider Video Series to discuss American poet Hart Crane recently. You can watch the discussion via YouTube .

‘In That Year’ is copyright © Kim Moore, 2015. It is reprinted from The Art of Falling (Seren, 2015) by permission of Seren Books.

The Art of Falling is Kim Moore’s keenly-anticipated debut poetry collection. A young poet from Cumbria, she writes with a compelling directness and power, as inspired by her life as a music teacher, as she is by the lives of ‘my people’ ancestors, poets and musicians. A case of domestic violence features in the cathartic central section. ‘In That Year’ is the opening poem of that section and was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Poem of 2015. 

Poetry London has commented that ‘there is a real menace and a compelling sense of the narrator’s urgent struggle to escape her abuser in this sequence, with the cycling back of repeated words reflecting the circular non-logic of a woman trapped in a violent relationship.’

Kim Moore lives in Barrow, Cumbria. Her poems have been published in the TLS, Poetry Review, Poetry London, and elsewhere. She regularly appears at festivals and events, and her prize-winning pamphlet, If we could speak like wolves (Smith-Doorstop), was chosen as an Independent Book of the Year in 2012 and was shortlisted for other prizes. Moore won an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2010. You can read more about her book on the Seren website, and more about Moore’s work on her own site. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Seren is an independent publisher based in Wales. Founded in 1981 to publish poetry discovered by the then-editor of Poetry Wales magazine, Cary Archard. Under Managing Editor Mick Felton the press now publishes a broad range of fiction, non-fiction, and criticism. Amy Wack has been Poetry Editor at Seren for over 20 years. During that time, poets published by Seren have won or been shortlisted for the Costa, Forward, T.S. Eliot and Aldeburgh Prizes. ‪You can find out more about Seren on the publisher’s website. 

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