There’s nothing to distinguish
this from the last three-or-so
hundred fields they pass, but
for whatever reason they call it
far enough. The engine shaking
off its sound, voices dripping
from their mouths to the ground.
When they say let’s go they won’t
mean everyone, this time. Beyond,
a field frozen solid, expression-
less, stubbled with broken grain.
They’ll leave him loose as teeth
in his life, lashed to a fencepost.
Blood gently unlacing the features
from his face and every wound
unwinding from its pain like wire.
It’ll be days before anyone can tie
the term missing to what it has
to mean. The field and his flesh
grow significance against their will.
by Patrick James Errington
Hear Patrick read the poem by clicking here
The Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre is proud and delighted to introduce you to the second of the three poets whose work our ignitionpress will be publishing in our first poetry pamphlets! Glean by Patrick James Errington, together with A Hurry of English by Mary Jean Chan and Lily Blacksell’s There’s No Such Thing, will be on sale on 14 February from the Brookes online Shop, and there will be launch events on 7 March (at the Poetry Café in London), 8 March (at the Society Café in Oxford), and on 25 March (at the Oxford Literary Festival). You can find out more about these events on our website. Last week we shared one of Lily’s poems with you, and next week we will be showcasing work by Mary Jean.
Patrick James Errington is a writer, translator, and researcher from the prairies of Alberta, Canada. As an undergrad at the University of Alberta (2007–2011), he studied English literature and creative writing with Nobel laureate Derek Walcott. He received his MFA from Columbia University (2013–2015) in creative writing and literary translation, where he also received a Program Scholarship and a Chair’s Fellowship. He has worked as an editor or editorial assistant for magazines like The New Yorker and The Columbia Journal, and is currently the editor-in-chief of The Scores, an online literary magazine based at the University of St Andrews. Patrick is currently a George Buchanan PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews and his research, under the supervision of Professors John Burnside and Don Paterson, is in the field of poetics and hermeneutics.
Patrick’s poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from: Boston Review, Copper Nickel, Passages North, Oxford Poetry, CV2, The London Magazine, Long Poem Magazine, Best New Poets 2016, The Iowa Review, Horsethief, West Branch,The Adroit Journal, Cider Press Review, DIAGRAM, American Literary Review and others. He was Commended in The National Poetry Competition 2016, and has won, among other competitions, The London Magazine Poetry Competition (2016) and the Wigtown Poetry Competition (2017). Together with Laure Gall, Patrick also translated Au creux de la main (The Hollow of the Hand), by PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy (Paris: Éditions l’Âge d’Homme, 2017).
ignitionpress is a new poetry pamphlet press with an international outlook which publishes original, arresting poetry from emerging poets, and established poets working on interim or special projects. The Managing Editor of the press is Les Robinson, who was the founder and director of the renowned poetry publisher tall-lighthouse until 2011. You can learn more about the press on the Poetry Centre website.
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.
Oxford Brookes Weekly Poems 