swallow

July 10, 2017March 30, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

swallow is hirundo rustica
sings adeste, fidelis in season
swallow is a long tail streamer
has spent 20 years on the wing
swallow on intercity
not red or black but biro
swallow as fork of
erskine and brunswick
swallow feeds geraniums, tomato plants
sparrowhawks, hobbies
(beware of the sparrowhawk)
swallow on diet of bees, hoverflies
brandy butter, jelly cubes, gas mark eight
swallow as spanakopita
foraged at spar piccadilly
swallow draped over
lady chapel altar
swallow is a charm to a sailor
swallow is the mermaid of the sky
swallow on waiting room wall
swallow gave the V to me
swallow as a frozen piece of
hair snapped blue in the morgue
swallow loathes the winter
swallow will not come back

by Sarah Crewe

The Poetry Centre’s International Poetry Competition, judged this year by award-winning poet Helen Mort, is open for entries! Poems are welcomed from writers of 18 years or over in the following two categories: English as an Additional Language and Open category. First Prize in both categories is £1000, with £200 for Second. The competition is open for submissions until 11pm GMT on 28 August 2017. Visit our website for more details, and feel free to forward the link to friends and colleagues.

Notes from Sidekick Books:

Sarah Crewe is from the Port of Liverpool. Her work deals with working class feminist psychogeography. Her previous publications have included sea witch (Leafe Press, 2014) and flick invicta (Oystercatcher, 2012) She is one third of Stinky Bear Press.

With this poem we continue our selection of poems from Sidekick Books’ four volumes of Birdbooks. In 2009, with two micro-compendiums under their belt, Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone, the editors at Sidekick, discussed the idea of a book of bird poetry – but one in which less well known species were on equal terms with the popular ones. There are dozens of poems about herons, eagles, ravens and nightingales, not so many about the whimbrel, the ruff, the widgeon or the hobby. Paper-cut artist Lois Cordelia was recruited to give the series its distinctive covers, and over 150 artists and illustrators were commissioned over six years to complete the series. The first volume is now in its second printing. Find out more about the Birdbook series on the Sidekick website.

Sidekick Books is a cross-disciplinary, collaborative poetry press run by Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone. Started in 2009 by the ex-communicated alchemist Dr Fulminare, the press has produced themed anthologies and team-ups on birds, video games, Japanese monsters and everything in between. Sidekick Books titles are intended as charms, codestones and sentry jammers, to be dipped into in times of unease. You can follow Sidekick’s work on the press’s website and via 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.

The Crow

May 8, 2017March 30, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

No, he’s not. He’s just a crow,
doing his crow thing:
black garb, harsh cry,
stiff strut. Yet it’s his lot
to appear less bird
than myth. Descending
on the ridge of a roof,
he becomes his own
heraldic logo, gothic
silhouette, till he tires of that
and releases himself
with a lavish, all-elbows show
of up-floundering aerodynamics.
You’ve heard a sky
full of his ego-strife
and bullying panics.
Courtship for him
is arranging his feathers
askew and doing a truculent
war-jig in front of the object
of his desire; and yet they say
he mates for life. Even so,
you mustn’t forget:
he’s just a crow.
by Christopher Reid

Three pieces of news from the Poetry Centre: firstly, we invite you to join us on Wednesday 17 May for an exciting lunchtime poetry reading with Jodie Hollander and Jane Spiro from 12-1pm in the Special Collections Room of the Library in the John Henry Brookes Building here at Brookes.

Next, we would be delighted to see you at ‘moments/that stretch horizons’: an international poetry symposium for practitioners, a collaboration between the Poetry Centre, the University of Reading, and the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI) at the University of Canberra. We will explore one theme current in contemporary writing, poetry about the environment, and two concerns of poetics: prose poetry and the lyric and poetry and publishing. Each panel set up to discuss these issues will be composed of a mixture of UK-based academics and writers and academics/poets from IPSI. The symposium will take place at Oxford Brookes University, and places will be limited. Tickets for the day (including refreshments and lunch) cost £10 (£7.50 for postgraduates). All are welcome!

Finally, the Poetry Centre recently launched the Oxford Brookes 2017 International Poetry Competition, which is judged this year by award-winning poet Helen Mort. Poems are welcomed from writers of 18 years or over in the following two categories: English as an Additional Language and Open category. First Prize in both categories is £1000, with £200 for Second. The competition is open for submissions until 11pm GMT on 28 August 2017. Visit our website for more details.

Notes from Sidekick Books:

Christopher Reid has published books of poetry for both adults and children. ‘The Crow’ is included in his 2015 collection, The Curiosities, published by Faber & Faber. His recent collections include The Song of Lunch (2009) and A Scattering (2009), in memory of his late wife, Lucinda. A Scattering was shortlisted for the 2009 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection) and the 2009 T. S. Eliot Prize, and won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year.

The Snow Bunting

February 21, 2017March 30, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

A mason times his mallet
to a lark’s twitter
Basil Bunting Briggflatts

Big Voice Ben sings the Monday Morning song to Susie.
Finn Balor hits the coup de grace to pin Samoa Joe.
Chloe Sevigny is 41 years of age. I know Timothy Hutton
starred in The Falcon and the Snowman, which was directed
by Snow Bunting.

Two birds, one one legged, the other bipedal, sing.
One’s song operatic, the other popular.
I own no birds, and so feel terrible to find that worm
in the road, inching towards cars near Harlesden.
What waste, they need those nutrients in the Arctic.

The Snow Bunting holds a sign that says Don’t Leap.
It’s fire-born in a box, the enemy of salamanders
and as it enter the galaxy, its main thing is stolen
from the Black Library.

One day you’ll work for me says the Snow Bunting,
on the way out. So the other bird pursues,
and punches the Snow Bunting.
Why couldn’t it just have kept its mouth shut?

The Snow Bunting stars in movies with the most impossible
combination of words, like Black Dawn, Half Past Dead,
and Point Blank. It runs like a little girl covered in bees,
but you can’t say anything about that.

What’s the best cartoon to watch when you’re smoking
your home made cigarettes, Snow Bunting?
The call is the distinctive rippling whistle
of the monogamous snowflake, arctic specialist.
It’s not your friend. You don’t know anything about it.

by SJ Fowler

This weekend, three of our students will take part in The University Camarade, curated by this week’s poet, SJ Fowler. Jennifer Wong, Abigail J. Villarroel, and Christina Murphy have been paired up with other students from different universities to produce collaborative poetry that they will perform this Saturday 25 February at Rich Mix in London from 7.30pm. This promises to be a very exciting event and it is free to attend! You can find more information about it on the Rich Mix website.

‘The Snow Bunting’ is copyright © SJ Fowler, 2016. It is reprinted from Birdbook IV: Saltwater and Shore (Sidekick Books, 2016) by permission of Sidekick Books

SJ Fowler is a poet and artist. He has published five collections of poetry and been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, The British Council, Tate Britain and Wellcome Collection. He is the poetry editor of 3am magazine, Lecturer at Kingston University, teaches at Tate Modern and is the curator of the Enemies project. He is a high functioning vegan bear, befriends birds and will protect their eggs with electric technologies. Currently he is writing an autobiography of the famous Hyde Park Mud Crow. Find out more about his work on his website.

Notes from Sidekick Books:

With this poem we continue our selection of poems from Sidekick Books’ four volumes of Birdbooks. In 2009, with two micro-compendiums under their belt, Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone, the editors at Sidekick, discussed the idea of a book of bird poetry – but one in which less well known species were on equal terms with the popular ones. There are dozens of poems about herons, eagles, ravens and nightingales, not so many about the whimbrel, the ruff, the widgeon or the hobby. Paper-cut artist Lois Cordelia was recruited to give the series its distinctive covers, and over 150 artists and illustrators were commissioned over six years to complete the series. The first volume is now in its second printing. Find out more about the Birdbook series on the Sidekick website.

Gavia stellata

November 21, 2016April 4, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

Who calls to the dark?

Who, when the shadows
are converted to morning,
when light pours out, when
day is turned to darkness
once more, when dark
is on the face of the sea,
who dives down, who
brings back a speck
to build on? I do. I did.

Who is the smallest
and brightest
and speckled
with stars? I am.

All things that gather
to shine I bear on my back
I raise on my wings
in the black of the waters,
in the deep vault of space.

Who dips and dives?
Dense bones take me down.

Who rose with a twin,
with another, who breasted
the face of the night, who
stitched the belt of stars
in Orion? Who speeds
without drag: bill like an awl
and flattened tarsus, neatest
and fleetest in streamlined
propulsion? Who took
Arcturus like a morsel of light,
a pinch of snuff, returned
to the surface?

Who calls to the dark;
who calls to the wind on
the surface of the water?
Who prompts the others
to dip and rise? Eyes like
seeds of garnet. Lightest
and brightest: gavia stellata,
the red-throated diver.

by Alexander Hutchison

This Thursday, Isy Mead, Head of Learning at The Story Museum here in Oxford, will launch a new monthly poetry workshop, held on the last Thursday of each month (except December). The workshop is open to anyone interested in writing poetry, from beginners to advanced. You can find more details on the Story Museum website.

And this Friday the Poetry Centre holds its International Poetry Competition awards event at Oxford Brookes, featuring readings from a number of the winning and shortlisted poets, from local young poets mentored by Kate Clanchy, and from the judge, Daljit Nagra. You can find more details of the winning and shortlisted poems on the Poetry Centre website

Notes from Sidekick Books:

With this poem we begin a selection of poems from Sidekick Books’ four volumes of Birdbooks. In 2009, with two micro-compendiums under their belt, Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone, the editors at Sidekick, discussed the idea of a book of bird poetry – but one in which less well known species were on equal terms with the popular ones. There are dozens of poems about herons, eagles, ravens and nightingales, not so many about the whimbrel, the ruff, the widgeon or the hobby. Paper-cut artist Lois Cordelia was recruited to give the series its distinctive covers, and over 150 artists and illustrators were commissioned over six years to complete the series. The first volume is now in its second printing. Find out more about the Birdbook series on the Sidekick website.

Alexander Hutchison (1943-2015) was born in Buckie, lived in Glasgow, and was RLF Writing Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He published Scales Dog: Poems New and Selected (Salt Publishing) in 2007, and his first book, Deep-Tap Tree (University of Massachusetts Press, 1978) is still in print, He wrote in English and Scots – and his poem ‘Deil Tak the Hinmaist’ was more than a token dialect piece in The Best British Poetry2011. His poem ‘Gavia stellata’ comes from Birdbook II: Freshwater Habitats.