Bleach

March 16, 2015April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

You’ve burnt me, bleach. Swollen my skin
until it squeaks. I trusted you and took off
my gloves. You left your red stubble touch.

I know you’re bad, bleach. I’ve read your label
and turned from the checkout before now.
I’ve sworn to give you up for good but

you’re so strong, bleach, when it comes
to the mould blooming across my bathroom
and my dreams. I needed you, called out

and you were there, bleach. Still, you must go.
Quick, no one will know. You’ve chewed my fingers
and swallowed my prints with your stink

so I’m blameless and raw as I tuck you in,
hide your face amongst the softer yet so much
weaker ecological bottles under the sink.

by Katherine Stansfield

This Thursday, join us at Brookes for a symposium about Witchcraft, Spiritualism, and the Occult. Featuring papers about Walter Scott, psychic detectives, and the use of the web to map stories of witchcraft and magic, this will be a lively and eye-opening event. It takes place from 5-6.30pm in room 207 of the JHB Building at Gipsy Lane. More details can be found here.

‘Bleach’ is copyright © Katherine Stansfield, 2014. It was published in Playing House, and is reprinted here by permission of Seren Books.

Notes from Seren:

Katherine Stansfield grew up on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. She moved to Wales in 2002 to study at Aberystwyth University where she worked as a lecturer in Creative Writing for several years before deciding to concentrate on writing full time. She is a poet and fiction writer. Her novel The Visitor was published by Parthian in 2013. It went on to win the fiction prize at the 2014 Holyer an Gof awards. Playing House, her debut poetry collection, was published by Seren in October 2014. Read more about her new book on the Seren website, and more about Katherine’s work on her own site. You can also follow her on Twitter and hear her read from her work here.

Writing about Katherine’s work, the Lampeter Review observed that: ‘Wit is a powerful tool that can be at once unsettling and disarming. It certainly imbues the virtuoso handling of tone in Katherine Stansfield’s poems, and her almost celebratory relish of the physicality of language.’

Seren is based in Bridgend, South Wales and was originally conceived in the early 80’s by then Head of English at Brynteg Comp, Cary Archard, on his kitchen table as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine. After moving briefly to poet Dannie Abse’s garage in Ogmore by Sea, the advent of Managing Editor Mick Felton has seen the press has go from strength to strength. We’ve published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as John Redmond’s Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between the painter Shani Rhys James and a number of poets and writers: Florilingua). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90s, has produced T.S. Eliot-nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward prize winners and nominees. Cary Archard remains on our Board of Directors and is a lively and influential presence. We mourn the loss, last year, of the wonderful Dannie Abse, also a guiding spirit. Find out more about the publisher from its 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.

Child Development

March 2, 2015April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

I am concerned we are making this mother
not like her son
by bringing to the surface in a rush
all his faults
to find out why he won’t sit still
and does what he does.

He looks fatter recently,
and turns his toes inwards
in a way that I’ve always liked but know
is aberrant, or will lead to aberrations.

And he looks over his shoulder often.
We have talked of how
he will escape
to the safe middle-distance
where ground-down words become music,

and how he will look for your eyes.
We have been told
we should not hold his gaze
in case he gets in and draws from us
what he thinks he needs,
what we are advised isn’t helping.

I saw the thinnest slice of a moon this morning.
Tomorrow, it will be melted and gone.

by Graham Clifford

Registration is still open for our contemporary poetry conference in London from 13-14 March, to which all are welcome. ‘New Generation to Next Generation 2014’ features academic panels, a poetry reading from Nick Drake and Helen Mort, and discussions about the publishing and reviewing of contemporary poetry. It will be an exciting two days. Full details of the programme are available on the IES website.The conference also includes a free public reading on the evening of 13 March by an illustrious ‘cross-generation’ panel of poets: Ian Duhig, Patience Agbabi, and Hannah Lowe, and you can register for that via the IES.

Notes from Seren:

Graham Clifford was born in 1973 in Portsmouth and grew up in Wiltshire. He studied Fine Art and then Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He has been published in numerous literary magazines such as: Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Magma, and London Magazine. Graham has been commended in many competitions including The Arvon International and the Bridport Prize. Two short collections won first prize in the 2006 New Writer Poetry competition and the Biscuit Publishing Prize in 2008. He has also performed at venues and events including Hay on Wye, The Troubadour Café and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. His work is featured in the Forward Prize Anthology for 2014. He has recently had two poems chiselled into the pavement near Walthamstow train station as part of a sundial project for refurbishment of the area. He works as an Assistant Head Teacher in East London. The Hitting Game is his first collection. You can read more about the book on the Seren website, and find out more about Graham’s work on his own website.

Commenting on Graham Clifford’s first book in Mad Hatter Reviews, Charlotte Barnes noted that: ‘A poetry fan to my very core, I was eager to delve into Graham Clifford’s recent collection, The Hitting Game. It was clear from the opening poem, “On the Dispersal of Water”, a nugget of intricate description and thought-provoking imagery, that this was going to be an interesting collection, and the rest of the publication certainly lived up to that initial judgement.’

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.

Boom!

February 9, 2015April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

There was this baby who thought she was a hand grenade.
She appeared one day in the centre of our marriage
– or at least in the spot where all the elements of our union
       appeared to orbit –
and kept threatening to explode, emitting endless alarm-sounds
       that were difficult to decode.
On the ridge of threat, we had two options.
One was attempt to make it to the bottom
of the crevice slowly, purposively, holding hands. The other
       was see how long we could stand there philosophizing
     that when she finally went off we’d be able to take it.
But then the baby who believed she was a hand grenade
       was joined in number: several more such devices entered our lives.
We held on, expecting each day to be our last. We did not let go.
As you might expect, she blew us to smithereens.
We survived, but in a different state: you became
       organized, I discovered patience, shrapnel soldered the parts of us
       that hadn’t quite fit together before. Sometimes when I speak
it’s your words that come out of my mouth.

by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

Two notes from the Poetry Centre: registration is now open for our contemporary poetry conference in London from 13-14 March, to which all are welcome. ‘New Generation to Next Generation 2014’ features academic panels, a poetry reading from Nick Drake and Helen Mort, and discussions about the publishing and reviewing of contemporary poetry. It will be an exciting two days. Full details of the programme are available on the IES website. The conference also includes a free public reading on the evening of 13 March by an illustrious ‘cross-generation’ panel of poets: Ian Duhig, Patience Agbabi, and Hannah Lowe, and you can register for that via the IES.The deadline for submissions to our well-being poetry competition isthis Friday 13 February. It is open to all members of the Brookes community. Find more details on the Poetry Centre website.

‘Boom!’ is copyright © Carolyn Jess-Cooke, 2014. It was published in Boom!, and is reprinted here by permission of Seren Books.

Notes from Seren:

Carolyn Jess-Cooke is a poet and novelist from Belfast. She has received numerous awards for her poetry, including an Eric Gregory Award, the Tyrone Guthrie Prize for Poetry, an Arts Council Writer’s Award, prizes in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the National Poetry Competition, and she has twice received a Northern Promise Award. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages. She is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. You can read more about Boom! on Seren’s pages, and more about Carolyn Jess-Cooke from her website. You can also follow Carolyn on Facebook and Twitter.

Writing about Jess-Cooke’s work in New Welsh Review, Georgia Carys Williams has commented that: ‘For any readers who sigh at the very idea of pregnancy writing, these poems are somehow unique, laying motherhood bare, written at the raw moment of pain and ecstasy at each strange and miraculous stage. We can only gain further insight from such vivid descriptions of how this experience affects time, identity and relationships.’

Seren is based in Bridgend, South Wales and was originally conceived in the early 80’s by then Head of English at Brynteg Comp, Cary Archard, on his kitchen table as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine. After moving briefly to poet Dannie Abse’s garage in Ogmore by Sea, the advent of Managing Editor Mick Felton has seen the press has go from strength to strength. We’ve published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as John Redmond’s Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between the painter Shani Rhys James and a number of poets and writers: Florilingua). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90s, has produced T.S. Eliot-nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward prize winners and nominees. Cary Archard remains on our Board of Directors and is a lively and influential presence. We mourn the loss, last year, of the wonderful Dannie Abse, also a guiding spirit. Find out more about the publisher from its 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.

Black Jaguar at Twilight

December 15, 2014April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

He seems to have sucked
the whole Amazon
into his being, the storm-

clouds of rosettes
through a bronze dusk.
I’ve been there, sheltered

under the buttress
of a giant, felt
the air around me –

its muscles tense,
stalking me
as I stumbled

through dense fur,
my father’s tongue
wet on my neck

as I fell into a gulch,
the blackout of his mouth.
And when I woke

I thought I heard
the jungle cough – this jungle,
the jaguar safe

behind bars. I lean over
and touch his cage – his glance
grazes me like an arrow.

by Pascale Petit

This is the last Weekly Poem until after the Christmas and New Year period. We hope you have enjoyed this year’s selection, and we are very grateful to our publishers who have so generously provided poems. You can find a full list of those publishers on the Poetry Centre site. Their books make excellent Christmas presents!

This Friday is the closing date for receipt of abstracts for the Poetry Centre/IES conference about contemporary poetry, due to take place in March 2015. Inspired by the New, Next, and Next Generation 2014 lists, the conference will explore the state of contemporary British and Irish poetry now, and will feature a host of contemporary poets and critics. For more details,visit the cfp on the IES site.

Notes from Seren:

Pascale Petit has published six collections, four of which were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and three featured as Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, and The Independent. Her latest is T.S. Eliot-shortlisted Fauverie (Seren, 2014). A portfolio of poems from this book won the 2013 Manchester Poetry Prize and the manuscript in progress was awarded an Arts Council England grant. Her fifth book, What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo, was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot Prize and Wales Book of the Year. You can read more about Fauverie on the Seren website, and follow Pascale’s work on her website or via Twitter.

Writing about Fauverie on The Tuesday Poem site, Kathleen Jones commented that ‘[t]he Fauverie is the big cat house in the Jardin des Plantes zoo in Paris – a city portrayed in these poems as “savage as the Amazon”. At the centre of the collection is the big Jaguar, Aramis, beautiful, wild and dangerous in every cell of his powerful body. And there is also the poet’s father, now weak and dying, but still able to arouse turbulent emotions and painful memories. There is ambivalence and ambiguity in everything – ‘ferocity and grace’ exist side by side – the wild can be both savage and seductive. Humans are also animals.’

Seren is based in Bridgend, South Wales and was originally conceived in the early 80’s by then Head of English at Brynteg Comp, Cary Archard, on his kitchen table as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine. After moving briefly to poet Dannie Abse’s garage in Ogmore by Sea, the advent of Managing Editor Mick Felton has seen the press has go from strength to strength. We’ve published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as John Redmond’s Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between the painter Shani Rhys James and a number of poets and writers: Florilingua). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90s, has produced T.S. Eliot-nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward prize winners and nominees. Cary Archard remains on our Board of Directors and is a lively and influential presence. We mourn the loss, this year, of the wonderful Dannie Abse, also a guiding spirit. Find out more about the publisher from its 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.

Girl

December 1, 2014April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

That girl’s the girl I mean. That one now, wearing
no-animals-were-harmed-in-making-these-
leopardskin leggings, ears posing the question

of what are ears for, really,
but bearing the weight of the biggest silver-
coloured hoops on earth? In diamanté

scarlet heels, six inch,
when she walks, everything sparkles, everything
limps. Her hair is piled up on her head,

like the kind of coastal clifftop rampart
cameras swoop in at from the sea,
in historical action movies, featuring

Mel Gibson. Up her sleeve
is a tattoo, a Chinese symbol, and what it means
is clear. Look, that’s her now, outside The Mermaid,

going a little cross-eyed as she draws
on a cigarette and shouts across the street,
asks an acquaintance if she’d like

some, would she? So how else
can I put it? How much clearer can I be?
That girl’s the girl. That girl’s the girl for me.
by Jonathan Edwards

Two news items. First, the deadline of the call for papers for the conference ‘New Generation to Next Generation 2014: Three Decades of British and Irish Poetry’ has been extended to 19 December. We welcome all abstracts that address one or more of the broad range of themes listed in the cfp, which can be found on the IES website.

And on Wednesday, Professor Maximilian de Gaynesford (University of Reading) will speak on ‘Why Poetry Matters’: 6pm (drinks and nibbles from 5.30) at the Ashmolean Museum’s Education Centre (nearest entrance from St. Giles). The event is free, but turn up early to secure a seat! More details can be found on the Ashmolean website.

Notes from Seren:

Jonathan Edwards was born and brought up in Crosskeys, south Wales. He has an MA in Writing from the University of Warwick, has written speeches for the Welsh Assembly Government and journalism for The Big Issue Cymru, and currently works as an English teacher. He won the Terry Hetherington Award in 2010, was awarded a Literature Wales new writer’s bursary in 2011, and in 2012 won prizes in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the Basil Bunting Award. His work has appeared in a wide range of magazines, including Poetry Review, The North, Poetry Wales andNew Welsh Review. My Family and Other Superheroes is his first collection, and has been shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Prize 2014 and the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2014. You can hear Jonathan discuss his book and read from it on the BBC website, and find out more about the book on the Seren website.

Dave Morgan in Write Out Loud has commented that ‘[t]his collection, in parts nostalgic and emotional, reveals a poet preoccupied with heart and hearth. However, Jonathan Edwards’ characters and places stop short of being caricature, and his appeal to emotion does not trivialise the poignancy and pathos of his observations. Edwards is the poet as sociologist, as well as observer/participant; he makes the customs and culture of the hill tribes of south Wales as exotic as that of the Trobriand islanders.’

Midnight, Dhaka, 25 March 1971

November 17, 2014April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

I am a hardened camera clicking at midnight.
I have caught it all: the screeching tanks
pounding the city under the pressing heat,
searchlights dicing the streets like bayonets,
Kalishnikovs mowing down rickshaw pullers,
vendor sellers, beggars on the pavements.
I click on, despite the dry and bitter dust
scratched on the lake-black water of my Nikon eye,
at a Bedford truck waiting by the roadside,
at two soldiers holding the dead by their hands and legs,
throwing them into the back, hurling
them one upon another until the floor
is loaded to the sky’s armpits. The corpses stare
at our stars’ succulent whiteness
with their arms flung out as if to bridge a nation.
Their bodies shake when the lorry chugs.
I click as the soldiers laugh at the billboard on the bulkhead:
GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU
SIX MILLION DRUNK EVERY DAY.
by Mir Mahfuz Ali

Tomorrow (Wednesday), there will be a joint poetry reading at Oxford Brookes by Peter Robinson and Hannah Lowe. It will take place from 12-1pm in T.300 (Tonge Building, Gipsy Lane Campus), and all are welcome. Peter Robinson is Professor of English Literature at the University of Reading, and a prolific and highly influential writer and editor. He has recently published Foreigners, Drunks and Babies, a collection of short stories, and Like the Living End, a chapbook of new poetry. Hannah Lowe is Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at Brookes. Her collection Chick was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2013, and shortlisted for, amongst other prizes, the Forward Best First Collection Prize. Hannah’s pamphlet Ormonde appeared earlier this month from Hercules Editions. In September, she was named as one of the twenty Next Generation Poets 2014. For more details, contact niall.munro@brookes.ac.uk

Mir Mahfuz Ali is an exceptional new voice in British Poetry. A native of what is now Bangladesh, Mahfuz grew up during the difficult period of the early 1970’s when the region was struck, first by a devastating cyclone, then by a particularly vicious civil war. As a boy, Mahfuz witnessed atrocities and writes about them with a searing directness, in poems like ‘My Salma’ and the title poem, but much more than this, his trauma becomes transformative, and his poetry the key to unlocking memories of a childhood that are rich in nuance, gorgeous in detail, and evocative of a beautiful country. They celebrate the human capacity for love and survival in otherwise tragic circumstances. Read more about the book on the Seren website.

Mahfuz was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1958, moved to the UK in the 1970s. He has worked as a male model, a tandoori chef and as a dancer and actor. He is renowned for his extraordinary voice: a rich, throaty whisper brought about by a Bangladeshi policeman trying to silence the singing of anthems during a public anti-war demonstration. He has given readings and performances at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and in other theatres in Britain and elsewhere; on BBC Newsnight Review, Radio 4, and the World Service as well as speaking at a number of conferences and festivals, including addressing the Home Office on integration policy. His poetry has appeared in London Magazine, Poetry London, Poetry Review and PN Review. His influences include Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Jibanananda Das (1899-1954). Mahfuz is an active member of Exiled Writer’s Ink, which is working to promote the creative expression of refugees and of exiled writers and encourage cross-cultural dialogue. Midnight, Dhaka, is his first full collection of poetry. Several poems from this collection won the Geoffrey Dearmer prize in 2014. You can find out more about his work from his website.

Seren is based in Bridgend, South Wales and was originally conceived in the early 80’s by then Head of English at Brynteg Comp, Cary Archard, on his kitchen table as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine. After moving briefly to poet Dannie Abse’s garage in Ogmore by Sea, the advent of Managing Editor Mick Felton has seen the press has go from strength to strength. We’ve published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as John Redmond’s Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between the painter Shani Rhys James and a number of poets and writers: Florilingua). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90’s, has produced T.S. Eliot nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward prize winners and nominees. Cary Archard remains on our Board of Directors and is a lively and influential presence. We mourn the loss, this year, of the wonderful Dannie Abse, also a guiding spirit. Find out more about the publisher on its 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.

Days of November 2009

November 3, 2014April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

Short days, long shadows:
sun rising low skims the hill.

Mending, making good, days full
of outdoor jobs, folk

racing to finish before dark,
before winter. Angled light, always

on the edge of leaving. These days
when every little thing feels urgent,

unmissable, when all you want
is to hold on to a lit rack

of cirrus, the taste of woodsmoke
catching your throat, a sleek seal

slipping back under, the farewell
of geese, scribbled in black arrows.

by Sheenagh Pugh

Hannah Lowe, Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing, and Jennifer Wong, PhD student in English and Creative Writing, will be taking part in the Reading Poetry Festival on Saturday 8 November in a special Poetry Centre reading. You can find out more about the festival, and book tickets, on the dedicated website.

Sheenagh Pugh lived for many years in Wales but now lives in Shetland. She has published many collections with Seren, including a Selected and a Later Selected Poems. Her latest is Short Days, Long Shadows (Seren 2014). She has also published two novels, a book of translations and a critical study of fan fiction. Write Out Loud has commented that ‘this consummate collection has the certainty of touch one has come to expect from Sheenagh Pugh, one of our finest contemporary poets.’ Sheenagh taught creative writing at the University of Glamorgan, but has now escaped and returned to the wild. You can find out more about her work from her website, and her blog. She writes a lively blog and is a provocative and entertaining presence on social media platforms.

Seren is based in Bridgend, South Wales and was originally conceived in the early 80’s by then Head of English at Brynteg Comp, Cary Archard, on his kitchen table as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine. After moving briefly to poet Dannie Abse’s garage in Ogmore by Sea, the advent of Managing Editor Mick Felton has seen the press has go from strength to strength. We’ve published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as John Redmond’s Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between the painter Shani Rhys James and a number of poets and writers: Florilingua). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90’s, has produced T.S. Eliot nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward prize winners and nominees like Hilary Menos, Sheenagh Pugh, Kathryn Simmonds, Kate Bingham, Judy Brown, Meirion Jordan, Rhian Edwards and Marianne Burton as well as continuing to publishing classic Welsh writers like Duncan Bush, Christopher Meredith, Paul Henry, Ruth Bidgood, Peter Finch and new names like Jonathan Edwards and Dai George. Recently, we’ve also added some fine Irish poets: Anne-Marie Fyfe, Eoghan Walls, Siobhan Campbell, Carolyn Jess-Cooke; several Americans: Carrie Etter and Katha Pollitt; and the London-based: Kathryn Maris. Our staff also includes Simon Hicks, Publicity, who doubles as cover designer, Sarah Davies, Marketing and Digital Media, and Rebecca Parfitt, administrator for Poetry Wales magazine. Cary Archard remains on our Board of Directors and is a lively and influential presence. We mourn the loss, this year, of the wonderful Dannie Abse, also a guiding spirit. Find out more about the publisher on its website.

The George

November 4, 2013April 11, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

While most have for their smell the deep
entanglement of beer in nylon underlay,
this joint is scrubbed and temperance-sweet,
at least as far as the far corner where Gran
bequeaths her eternal stash of lossin dants.

There’s grandpa strangling the swan who dared
to take a nip at baby Alf, and right behind him
Uncle Alf, lean and in his prime, crooning Haydn
to a brace of pinnied sisters and the highwayman
who someone traced to someone’s distaff side.

There’s our Huguenot great-grandsire, slopping
in off the Pembrokeshire coast. He pontificates
on the elect, sticks out a hand to feel for rain,
moans his way east to Rhymney, and don’t
even get him started on the Treaty of Nantes.

They’re all in there, jammed like junked receipts
in a filofax. Beyond them there’s the Davies Suite,
and further back the Eveleigh, the Jones: dimly lit,
proliferating function rooms, packed with thatchers
and lay-preaching stiffs, each of them marrying in,

each of them thwacking upon the table their own
lame dowry of myth. Sunday visits. Suicides.
The gypsy someone had a tumble with, and hence
that auntie’s Persian eyes. They’re all there gossiping
as far as the dark back garden, ignorant of my love.

by Dai George

Notes from Seren:

Dai George is originally from Cardiff and now lives and teaches in London. He studied at the universities of Bristol and Columbia, NYC, where he completed his Master of Fine Arts in Writing in 2010. As well as poetry, his criticism has been published in a range of magazines including Poetry Wales, Poetry Review and New Welsh Review. He writes fiction and is working towards a historical novel on the Gunpowder Plot, with Ben Jonson as the central character. According to Roddy Lumsden, ‘Dai George seems to me to offer something new to Welsh, and to British poetry. In fact, perhaps the poet he most reminds me of is the leading Northern Irish poet of the newer generation, Alan Gillis, not in terms of direct stylistic commonalities, but in that both these poets can and do switch successfully between a higher, lyrical style and something closer to demotic narrative’. You can read more from The Claims Office on Seren’s site, watch Dai George read from his work on YouTube, and attend the launch of the book on Thursday 14 November at The Tea House Theatre, 139 Vauxhall Walk, London .

Seren Books (‘Seren’ means ‘star’ in Welsh) is based in Bridgend, South Wales. Originally conceived by Cary Archard and Dannie Abse as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine in the latter’s garage in Ogmore-by-Sea in the early 80s, under Managing Editor Mick Felton the press has gone from strength to strength and has published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as the new John Redmond title Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between photographer David Hurn and poet John Fuller, Writing the Picture). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90s, has produced T.S. Eliot Prize-nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward Prize winners and nominees, as well as continuing to publishing classic Welsh writers. Most recently, Seren has also added Irish and American writers to its list.

For more details about Seren, visit the publisher’s website, where there is a blog about Seren’s news and events. You can also find Seren on Facebook, on Twitter, and on YouTube, where there are videos of a number of poets reading from their work.

Holes

October 21, 2013April 11, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

I pressed the button. No-one came. The police could not find me in
the dark. They were also afraid of death… it might come for them
instead. They waited behind a screen of trees, for the moon to
uncover itself, silver the edges of their sirens, their dark cars. The
pale pebbles in the driveway, left to imagine the river that used to
wet them-they must tire of always staring up, sightless and at the
mercy of everything. The police step on them. They creep only so
close, but no closer. My son is dead on the ground. Someone close
his eyes. But I am ignored in this as I have been with so many other
things. His blood is cold now, blackening, drying up, stiffening the
fabric of his jacket, soaking into the soil. There are holes in him I
know nothing about, nothing to do with the boy I delivered to the
world, my gift, small and pure. The dark is blue and cold. The trees
conceal susurrations in their high skirts, branches uplifted like arms,
wailing whispers… Black cars, old scars, my son’s open mouth,
empty shotgun shells whistling smoke white dancing up and out

by Ivy Alvarez

There is an exciting multi-poet reading taking place at the Jericho Tavern on Walton Street in Oxford tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd October). The evening will feature Fiona Sampson (former associate of the Poetry Centre), Patrick McGuinness, Jenny Lewis, and Claire Trévien, who featured in a recentPoetry Centre podcast. Tickets cost £5/£4 on the door, doors and bar open 6pm, and you are advised to arrive early! You can find more details about the event from thewebsite of Gareth Prior, who is the organizer of the reading.

Notes from Seren:

Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Red Morning Press, USA, 2006), her first poetry collection. Her poems appear in anthologies, journals and new media in many countries, including Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Roundyhouse and Red Poets, as well as Best Australian Poems (2009), A Face to Meet the Faces (University of Akron Press, 2012), The Guardian (online, 2012), Prairie Schooner (US, 2012) and Junctures (NZ, 2010), with individual poems translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. A MacDowell and Hawthornden Fellow thrice-shortlisted for Best Poem by fourW (Australia), both Literature Wales and the Australia Council for the Arts awarded grants towards the writing of her second collection, Disturbance, which was published this month. Born in the Philippines and raised in Australia, she became a British citizen in 2010 after living in Cardiff, Wales since 2004. Disturbance is a book-length long poem, in multiple voices, that relates the devastating consequences of a true-life case of domestic violence that leads to murder. Writing about her first collection, Denise Duhamel commented that ‘Alvarez is an ambitious poet who challenges herself and her readers, while exploring the complexities of families through persona.’ You can read further extracts from Disturbance on the Seren website, and follow her work via her website or on Twitter: @IvyAlvarez.

Seren Books (‘Seren’ means ‘star’ in Welsh) is based in Bridgend, South Wales. Originally conceived by Cary Archard and Dannie Abse as an offshoot of Poetry Walesmagazine in the latter’s garage in Ogmore-by-Sea in the early 80s, under Managing Editor Mick Felton the press has gone from strength to strength and has published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as the new John Redmond title Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between photographer David Hurn and poet John Fuller, Writing the Picture). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90s, has produced T.S. Eliot Prize-nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward Prize winners and nominees, as well as continuing to publishing classic Welsh writers. Most recently, Seren has also added Irish and American writers to its list.

Wingprint

October 7, 2013April 11, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

the colour of power hanging in the air
is a word for sun on warm stone
made transparent

as sky and trees
repeat leaves in flame
on the other side a flight path

where finches throw their outlines
wings etch themselves on windows

in the stun of what stops them
an identified span
of feather grease and dust

                                            a curve of passageways
glazed over a bird
                      flies in
                                 lost in exits
           and entrances                      a tongue silent
                      behind a mouth that moves through glass

when the door is locked it is alarmed
somewhere between G4 and E7
or what I know and and how it’s different from X

a restless wish for    what can’t be googled
           and if so is it knowledge
                                            or the lost keys
that apple F won’t retrieve

by Zoë Skoulding

The Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre warmly invites you to attend the opening of the exhibition Where We Begin to Look: Landscape and Poetry on Friday 11 October at 6.30pm in the Glass Tank, Abercrombie Building, Oxford Brookes University. Where We Begin to Look is a collaborative exhibition by the artist Zoe Benbow and the poet, Deryn Rees-Jones, and is presented by the Poetry Society and Small World Theatre, Ceredigion. The opening event will feature a discussion about the exhibition by Benbow and Rees-Jones, and readings by Rees-Jones and Sarah Corbett, whose work appears in the show. You can find out more on the Brookes website. If you would like to attend the opening, please reply to this message with your details. The exhibition runs until 5 November and is open to all.

Notes from Seren:

Zoë Skoulding‘s previous collections of poems include Remains of a Future City (Seren, 2008), and The Mirror Trade (Seren, 2004). Her work as a poet also encompasses criticism, translation and cross-media performance; she has been involved in several projects combining poetry with music or experimental soundscape, particularly as a member of Parking Non-Stop. She lives in north Wales, where she is Senior Lecturer in the School of English at Bangor University and Editor of the international quarterly Poetry Wales. You can follow Zoë’s work via her website or on Twitter.

Seren Books (‘Seren’ means ‘star’ in Welsh) is based in Bridgend, South Wales. Originally conceived by Cary Archard and Dannie Abse as an offshoot of Poetry Wales magazine in the latter’s garage in Ogmore-by-Sea in the early 80s, under Managing Editor Mick Felton the press has gone from strength to strength and has published a wide range of titles including fiction (which under Editor Penny Thomas has seen the Booker-nominated novel by Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, and an acclaimed novella series based on the medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion) and non-fiction (including literary criticism such as the new John Redmond title Poetry and Privacy, as well as sumptuous art books like the collaboration between photographer David Hurn and poet John Fuller, Writing the Picture). Seren’s poetry list, edited by Amy Wack since the early 90s, has produced T.S. Eliot Prize-nominated titles by Deryn Rees-Jones and Pascale Petit, Costa winner John Haynes, and a large list of Forward Prize winners and nominees, as well as continuing to publishing classic Welsh writers. Most recently, Seren has also added Irish and American writers to its list.