Author: oxfordbrookesuni

The Sun Has Burst The Sky

~ oxfordbrookesuni

The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.

The sea laps the great rocks
Because I love you
And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away
And saying coldly ‘Constancy is not for you’.

The blackbird fills the air
Because I love you.
With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

The people walk in the street and laugh
I love you
And far down the river ships sound their hooters
Crazy with joy because I love you.

by Jenny Joseph

© Jenny Joseph, 2009

Nothing Like Love (Enitharmon, 2009), from which this poem is taken, is a brilliant new collection from Jenny Joseph that brings together a number of her early and previously uncollected love poems. A prolific and wide-ranging writer in prose and verse, Joseph is best known for ‘Warning’, a dramatic monologue about ageing. Joyous and bright, ‘The Sun Has Burst The Sky’ showcases her aptitude for love poetry, its seemingly simple sentiments made fresh and vibrant through deft composition. Find out more about the book here. You can hear her read ‘The Sun Has Burst The Sky’ and other poems at this site.

Enitharmon Press takes its name from a William Blake character who represents spiritual beauty and poetic inspiration. Founded in 1967 with an emphasis on independence and quality, Enitharmon has been associated with such figures as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Kathleen Raine. Enitharmon also commissions internationally renowned collaborations between artists, including Gilbert & George, and poets, including Seamus Heaney, under the Enitharmon Editions imprint. Discover more about Enitharmon here.

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.

Dark View

~ oxfordbrookesuni

The sun that puts its spokes in every
Wheel of manhandle and tree

Derives its path of seashines
(Spiritual centrality) from my

Regard. I sent it
My regards. Some yards

Of lumen from the fabrika
Have come unbolted in the likes

Of it, or maybe
In the likes of me — a long

Unweaving or recarding I
Cannot recall begun — and there

Before my eyes the palm
Puts lashes round the sun.

by Heather McHugh

© Heather McHugh, 2009

Heather McHugh, a 2009 MacArthur Fellow, is the author of thirteen books of poetry, translation, and literary essays, including a Griffin International Poetry Prize translation, as well as Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist volumes. McHugh has taught literature and writing for over three decades, most regularly at the University of Washington in Seattle and in the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. From 1999 to 2005 she served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and in 2000 she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In Upgraded to Serious (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), the book from which ‘Dark View’ comes, McHugh presents a fast-paced, verbally dexterous, and brilliantly humorous book. Utilizing medical terminology to work through loss and detachment, McHugh’s sly rhymes and rhythms talk of love, raised hackles, and much in between. You can read further selections from her new collection at this page.

Copper Canyon Press is a non-profit publisher that believes poetry is vital to language and living. For thirty-five years, the Press has fostered the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets for an expanding audience. To find out more about Copper Canyon and its publications, click here.

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.

Hope

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Like lightning in dark skies
I love to brighten up dark lives
and rid sad hearts of lonely cries.

I have one fierce enemy, despair,
all driven energy, forever there,
rips hearts apart and doesn’t care.

I care. Let’s walk together now,
help me to help, to grow and thrive
and let the future shine alive.

Despair would murder it and make you
guilty. Let’s talk now as we walk and see
the future reaching out to you and me.

Our skies are brightening up today.
I love your company, dear friend,
and always will, come what may.

I dream of being the living song
everyone would love to sing.
Impossible? No. That’s me. Let’s keep walking

until both our hearts are singing.

by Brendan Kennelly

© Brendan Kennelly, 2009

Much of Brendan Kennelly’s poetry gives voice to others and otherness. Whether through masks or personae, dramatic monologues or riddles, his poems inhabit other lives, other beings and other ways of being in the world.

The riddling poems of Reservoir Voices (Bloodaxe Books, 2009) of which ‘Hope’ is one, add a further dimension to these explorations, inspired by an autumn sojourn in America where he would sit by the edge of a reservoir, trying to cope with loneliness by contemplating black swans, blue waves, seagulls, trees and rocks:

‘It was in that state of fascinated dislocation, of almost mesmerised emptiness, that the voices came with suggestions, images, memories, delights, horrors, rhythms, insights and calm, irrefutable insistence that it was they who were speaking, not me. To surrender to loneliness is to admit new presences, new voices into that abject emptiness. So I wrote down what I heard the voices say and, at moments, sing.’

To find out more about Brendan Kennelly and to watch videos of him reading from his work – including ‘Hope’, click here.

Founded in Newcastle in 1978, Bloodaxe Books is one of Britain’s leading independent poetry publishers. Internationally renowned for quality in literature and excellence in book design, its authors and books have won virtually every major literary award given to poetry. Details of all Bloodaxe’s publications, plus sample video and audio clips of poets reading their work, can be found here.

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.

A Kingfisher

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Frequenting a corner of an eye,
Like a thing one didn’t really see,
Its dodges reconcile me
To the way you get undressed,
Affording less than a glimpse!

As for the one apparent
To our friend, eliciting
Her outburst as it darted
Close to the surface,
I guessed that stain on a backdrop

Of river and trees, that flight
I very nearly caught (but where
Was one supposed to look?)
Was lost for good. And then,
There went the streak of it

– Sooner gone than seen.
Was it, was it – what?
Sapphire? Emblem of all
Snatches: sought like the dream
One forgets even as one wakes from it.

by Anthony Howell

© Anthony Howell, 2009

Anthony Howell has been described as a “dandy” (in a review by Peter Porter) and the elegance of his poetry certainly justifies that. Perhaps it’s that quality which has led him to be compared with the American poet John Ashbery, a poet whose influence is more to be seen in his earlier work. In fact Howell employs a variety of methods, formal and other, in this highly enjoyable collection, which features two longer poems: one a detailed narrative description of the joys, or rather lack of them, in commuting across London; the other, the book’s title poem, a fable about lust which the poet describes, perhaps teasingly, as “extending a theme of dubious empathy explored by Browning in “My Last Duchess”.’

‘The Kingfisher’ comes from The Ogre’s Wife, published by Anvil Press in 2009. You can find out more about Howell’s collections here.

Anvil Press Poetry was founded in 1968 and publishes English-language poetry and poetry in translation, both classic and modern. You can read more about Anvil here.

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.

The Bread-Maker Speaks

~ oxfordbrookesuni

after Brendan Kennelly

It is true that you comfort me
As I slit your flesh
When kneading is done,

Marking a cross
To create four quarters.
I am not brutal,

Your crushed kernels,
Have long awaited
The flow from jug to bowl,

Moisture not known since before
You were beheaded
In an August field.

Through milk, you remember rain,
What made you grow.
And I remember another kitchen,

The smell when soda
Was spooned, a pinch of salt,
Melted butter. Each time

My fingers glide
Beneath your thinly-floured
Mound, I learn again how days

And dreams fatten in warmth,
Wetness, barely dusted by
What contains them:

Routine acts, healing
In work, pleasure
In slit and cut.

From the fingers out,
I make shapes.
The oven’s belly groans.

by Mary O’Donnell

© Mary O’Donnell, 2009

Mary O’Donnell was born in Monaghan, Ireland. She has been a teacher of English, German and Drama, worked with the development agency Concern, been a translator, and worked in journalism as The Sunday Tribune‘s Drama Critic. She has a particular interest in poetry in translation and wrote and presented the RTE Radio programme ‘Crossing the Lines’, a series which focused on European poetry and included readings from many European countries. O’Donnell has published five previous poetry collections, including The Place of Miracles (New Island, 2007), as well as three novels and two collections of short fiction. You can find out more about Mary O’Donnell here and here.

‘The Bread-Maker Speaks’ comes from her latest collection, The Ark Builders, a book in which she attends to the nature of love, loss and continuity, and provides an insight into the complex energies of a struggling global ecology. The rhythms of her own country, Ireland, are keenly observed as it lives out its modern role, partly in flux, partly still aware of ancient connections to land and language. You can find out more about the collection and read other poems from it here. ‘The Bread-Maker Speaks’ is partly a response to the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly’s own poem ‘Bread’, available to read here. The Poetry Centre will be featuring a more recent Kennelly poem in the next few weeks.

Arc Publications publishes contemporary poetry from new and established writers from the UK and abroad, specialising in the work of international poets writing in English, and the work of overseas poets in translation. Arc also has a music imprint, Arc Music, for the publication of books about music and musicians. To learn more about Arc and to see its range of titles, click here.

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.

November: River

~ oxfordbrookesuni

November shall have been a sombre month
like breath fetched from the navel of the earth
to say a word of ending. November
shall be a solemn month, recipient
of sides dashed down by rainfall, human turf.
The grass lashes. Flames ascend. The ash bed
a patch beneath god-eyebrow sky collects
a lifetime like the water’s look. This month
nods its face downwards. This was November.
Someone has died. Who hardly knows this.

by Vahni Capildeo

© Vahni Capildeo, 2009

Vahni Capildeo was born in Trinidad in 1973, and has lived in the UK since 1991. She is a Contributing Editor and the UK agent and representative for the Caribbean Review of Books. She is also a Contributing Advisor to Black Box Manifold, the University of Sheffield e-zine, and a member of the International Advisory Board for the Journal of Indo-Caribbean Studies.

This poem is from a series entitled ‘Winter to Winter’, and appears in the collection Undraining Sea, which was published by Egg Box last month. A poem from this book was Highly Commended in the Forward Poetry Prize, 2009. A second collection by Vahni Capildeo, Dark & Unaccustomed Words, is due out from Egg Box in 2010. You can find out more about Capildeo here, and hear her read some of her poems here.

Egg Box is a small, independent poetry publisher based in Norwich, run by young poet Nathan Hamilton. It is rapidly establishing a strong reputation for its freshness of approach and keen eye for talented newcomers. Click here to visit Egg Box’s website.

Extraordinary Rendition

~ oxfordbrookesuni

You gave me back your frown
and the most recent responsibility you’d shirked,
along with something of your renown
for having jumped from a cage before it jerked

to a standstill, your wild rampage
shot through with silver falderals,
the speed of that falling cage
and the staidness of our canyon walls.

You gave me back lake-skies,
pulley-glitches, gully-pitches, the reflected gleams
of two tin plates and mugs in the shack,

the echoes of love sighs
and love screams
our canyon walls had already given back.

by Paul Muldoon

A collaborative work with photographer Norman McBeath, Plan B is an evocative set of visually-inspired poems from Paul Muldoon. Born in Northern Ireland, Muldoon is a world-renowned poet and academic. These lines are extracted from ‘Extraordinary Rendition’, one of the poems in the book. They display Muldoon’s verbal dexterity and uncompromising tone, and convey a visceral yet understated power – an effect amplified by their juxtaposition with McBeath’s stunning photographs. You can find out more about the book here, and more about Muldoon on this page.

Enitharmon Press takes its name from a William Blake character who represents spiritual beauty and poetic inspiration. Founded in 1967 with an emphasis on independence and quality, Enitharmon has been associated with such figures as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Kathleen Raine. Enitharmon also commissions internationally renowned collaborations between artists, including Gilbert & George, and poets, including Seamus Heaney, under the Enitharmon Editions imprint. Discover more about Enitharmon here.

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.

babel 6

~ oxfordbrookesuni

we don’t know the name of the plant
we want to know the name of the plant
carroty liquid streams out when we break
the stem; strange substance of meaning
I would dip my finger into
to draw my hieroglyphs on your forehead
but there is no credit in the phonemes that pour out of my mouth
shrivelled cherries half rotten papayas not worth purchasing
ok I find diphthongs embarrassing to say the way you do
lips need to be elastic slugs in the act of androgynous love
but look at these unusually shaped fruits I dare you to eat them
roll them in your sinuses and spit the pips drawing accents
on a vowel bearing öszibarack or málna; say it little by little
say it and then take a look at the tiny boy
who sits in silence on the stone floor
in the garden near a pot of flowers
reaches out for a handful of soil from time to time
to chew and then to swallow smiling with black teeth

by Agnes Lehoczky

© Agnes Lehoczky, 2008

Agnes Lehoczky was born in 1976 in Budapest. Her work has appeared in a number of online and print publications both in Hungary and in the UK. Budapest to Babel, published by Egg Box in October 2008, is her first collection in English. A second is due from Egg Box later this year.

‘babel 6’ is from a sequence of poems entitled ‘garden dialogues’, which appear in Budapest to Babel, a lively and rewarding collection about the difficulties and joys of language. Often poignant, always inventive, the book explores states of confusion and chaos, playfulness and delight, with a freshness of style and tone. Find out more about the book at this page, where you can also watch Agnes Lehoczky reading from her book at the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London last year.

Egg Box is a small, independent poetry publisher based in Norwich, run by poet Nathan Hamilton. It is rapidly establishing a strong reputation for its freshness of approach and keen eye for talented newcomers. Click here to visit Egg Box’s 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.

80

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Imagine a small state with a small population
let there be labor-saving tools
that aren’t used
let people consider death
and not move far
let there be boats and carts
but no reason to ride them
let there be armor and weapons
but no reason to employ them
let people return to the use of knots
and be satisfied with their food
and pleased with their clothing
and content with their homes
and happy with their customs
let there be another state so near
people hear its dogs and chickens
and live out their lives
without making a visit

by Lao-tzu, translated by Red Pine

Translation © Red Pine, 2009

Bill Porter assumes the pen name Red Pine for his translations. He was born in Los Angeles in 1943, grew up in the Idaho Panhandle, served a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, graduated from the University of California with a degree in anthropology, and attended graduate school at Columbia University. Uninspired by the prospect of an academic career, he dropped out of Columbia in 1972 and moved to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After four years with the monks and nuns, he struck out on his own and eventually found work at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where he produced over a thousand programs about his travels in China. In 1993 he returned to America with his family and has lived ever since in Port Townsend, Washington.

Lao-tzu’s Taoteching, from which this poem comes (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), is an essential volume of world literature, and Red Pine’s nuanced and authoritative English translation is one of the bestselling English versions. This revised edition includes extensive commentary by Taoist scholars, adepts, poets, and recluses spanning more than 2,000 years. You can read two more selections from the book here, and learn more about Lao-tzu here.

Copper Canyon Press is a non-profit publisher that believes poetry is vital to language and living. For thirty-five years, the Press has fostered the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets for an expanding audience. To find out more about Copper Canyon and its publications, click here.

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.

Severn Song

~ oxfordbrookesuni

The Severn was brown and the Severn was blue –
not this-then-that, not either-or,
no mixture. Two things can be true.
The hills were clouds and the mist was a shore.

The Severn was water, the water was mud
whose eddies stood and did not fill,
the kind of water that’s thicker than blood.
The river was flowing, the flowing was still,

the tide-rip the sound of dry fluttering wings
with waves that did not break or fall.
We were two of the world’s small particular things.
We were old, we were young, we were no age at all,

for a moment not doing, nor coming undone –
words gained, words lost, till who’s to say
which was the father, which was the son,
a week, or fifty years, away.

But the water said earth and the water said sky.
We were everyone we’d ever been or would be,
every angle of light that says You, that says I,
and the sea was the river, the river the sea.

by Philip Gross

© Philip Gross, 2009.

This poem is from The Water Table, a new collection by Philip Gross. It was published by Bloodaxe Books in November 2009 and won the 2009 T.S. Eliot Prize.

A powerful and ambiguous body of water lies at the heart of these poems, with shoals and channels that change with the forty-foot tide. Even the name is fluid – from one shore, the Bristol Channel, from the other Môr Hafren, the Severn Sea.

Philip Gross’s meditations move with subtle steps between these shifting grounds and those of the man-made world, the ageing body and that ever-present mystery, the self. Admirers of his work know each new collection is a new stage; this one marks a crossing into a new questioning, new clarity and depth.

For more information about Philip Gross and to see a video of him reading from The Water Table, click here.

Founded in Newcastle in 1978, Bloodaxe Books is one of Britain’s leading independent poetry publishers. Internationally renowned for quality in literature and excellence in book design, its authors and books have won virtually every major literary award given to poetry. Details of all Bloodaxe’s publications, plus sample video and audio clips of poets reading their work, can be found here.

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.