Christmas Pudding

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Richness waits under spare beds,
at the back of fridges. The more cautious
have placed theirs at the bottom of freezers. 

Made according to family recipes,
passed down or across to new recruits –
a whole day’s steaming takes commitment. 

My Auntie Jean, whose Welsh recipe I follow,
always ensured her grandchildren stopped by
on mixing day to stir and make a wish. 

Last November I stirred in hope
in my mother’s kitchen and kidded myself
it wouldn’t just be the two of us for dinner. 

We hid it away in her overflow freezer –
she always has enough food on hand to feed
her four grown-up children at a moment’s notice.

It will be taken out on Christmas Eve.
As the jewels of fruit defrost maybe we will unthaw
a little ourselves, the kernels of two years’

disappointment and loss melting away.
My nephew will be old enough this year
to have a taste. But before the eating 

the dousing. I will try not to look
at the pudding’s blue flame but the faces
gathered and lit around the table.

by Lorraine Mariner

This is the final Weekly Poem of the year. We’d like to thank all the publishers who send us poems to share. Please do support them by buying their books and pamphlets! Very many thanks also to you, our readers! We wish you an enjoyable and restful winter break. The Weekly Poem will return to your inbox on 17 January.

We leave you with two pieces of news from the Poetry Centre. Firstly, we’re delighted to say that our pamphlet press, ignitionpress, won this year’s Michael Marks Publishers’ Award! Many thanks indeed to all our readers and supporters and, of course, to our poets! You can find out about the other shortlisted presses and the shortlists for the pamphlet and illustration prizes on the Michael Marks website and learn more about the press and our pamphlets on our own site.

And just in case you missed it, our latest podcast is now live and features our colleague Dr Dinah Roe, whose work on Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites we showcased this past semester. In this episode, Dinah discusses three poems by Rossetti, considers how her view of the poet has changed during Dinah’s time working with her poetry and prose and in the course of writing a book about her family, and how Rossetti’s experience as a carer affected her writing. You can listen to the podcast via our website  or find it via the usual podcast providers: just search for ‘Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre Podcast’. You can also watch Dinah discuss Rossetti’s poem ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ in Lucy Worsley’s Christmas Carol Odyssey, available now on the BBC website.

‘Christmas Pudding’ is copyright © Lorraine Mariner, 2021. It is reprinted from Christmas Together: Twelve Poems for Those We Love (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Lorraine Mariner lives in London and works at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre. She has published two collections with Picador: Furniture (2009) and There Will Be No More Nonsense (2014) and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize twice, for Best Single Poem and Best First Collection, and for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize. Her most recent publication is the poetry chapbook Anchorage with Grey Suit Editions (2020).

You can find out more about Lorraine’s work on the Poetry Archive website and follow her on Twitter and on Instagram.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Clouds to Tea, Kindness, Home and Sheep. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online via the Candlestick website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profits.

You can follow Candlestick on Twitter and find the press on Facebook.

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 Chronicles of Narnia

~ oxfordbrookesuni

Somewhere, there’s another world
behind a door you’ve been knocking on
since you were young.  

It’s not that you want to escape your life –
just that somewhere, very close by,
in a room you’ve never explored,    

there’s a forest where snow falls
in the warm light cast by a lamp.
The moon hangs in a clear Northern sky,   

the stream is frozen.
There are thousands and thousands of stars.
You don’t need a key, or a ring   

and there’s no point in knocking:
every heart is a secret door.
One day, you’ll walk right through   

and you’ll be there.
Perhaps a shadow in the trees will approach you.
You’ll feel powerful and brave and very small.

Then your heart will be lion and mountains,
an acre of blue flowers blooming
and you’ll stride into a world   

you’ve always believed in
because there was always a river
and bright moss and birdsong   

and stars – oh my love
though I didn’t know how to reach you
all my life, I knew you were there.  
 

by Clare Shaw

Three pieces of news from the Poetry Centre: our latest podcast is now live and features our colleague Dr Dinah Roe, whose work on Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites we have been showcasing this semester. In this episode, Dinah discusses three poems by Rossetti, considers how her view of the poet has changed during Dinah’s time working with her poetry and prose and in the course of writing a book about her family, and how Rossetti’s experience as a carer affected her writing. You can listen to the podcast via our website or find it via the usual podcast providers: just search for ‘Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre Podcast’.

We’re really pleased to say that our pamphlet press, ignitionpress, has been shortlisted for this year’s Michael Marks Publishers’ Award! The winners will be announced tomorrow, 7 December. To find out more and to register for the event, visit the Michael Marks website.

We recently announced the winners of our International Poetry Competition, judged by Will Harris. You can find out who won and who was shortlisted in the EAL and Open categories on our website, where you can also register to attend our online awards event tomorrow, 7 December. Everyone is welcome to attend! You’ll be able to hear from the winners in both categories and also from the judge, Will Harris, who will talk about judging the competition and give a short reading from his work.

‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ is copyright © Clare Shaw, 2021. It is reprinted from Christmas Movies: A Double Bill of Festive Poems (Candlestick Press, 2021) by permission of Candlestick. You can read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Candlestick website.

Clare Shaw was born in Burnley. She has published three collections with Bloodaxe: Straight Ahead (2006), Head On (2012) and Flood (2018). Her fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love was awarded a Northern Writers’ Award and will be published by Bloodaxe in 2022. Clare is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, a co-director of the Kendal Poetry Festival and a regular tutor for the Arvon Foundation.

You can find out more about Clare’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press based in Nottingham and has been publishing its sumptuous ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets since 2008. Subjects range from Birds and Clouds to Tea, Kindness, Home and Sheep. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres. They can also be ordered online via the Candlestick website where you can find out more about the full range of titles. In 2019 Candlestick sold over 100,000 pamphlets, supporting its nominated charities with donations equivalent to around 49% of pre-tax net profits.

You can follow Candlestick on Twitter and find the press on Facebook.

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 Last Days of August

~ oxfordbrookesuni

After James Tate


Through gaps & crannies in
the clapboard house blows the hot wind
to quicken a ghost of a lover 

& me. All day it has travelled over
the plains & now it trembles across
my cheap drapes. Is it the wind or 

a lover from faraway? Like the cold
breeze that tapped on my grandmother’s
door the night Grandpa died & every night 

after: the knocking. There it is again but
warm as breath, singing the blast
of the train whistle & I am nothing 

if not hungry. For it is the end of August, &
I know—love is hitched to the tracks, blown
through, travelling away across America.


by Zoë Brigley

News from the Poetry Centre: we’re really pleased to say that our pamphlet press, ignitionpress, has been shortlisted for this year’s Michael Marks Publishers’ Award! Established in 2009, the Michael Marks Awards represent the main awards for poetry pamphlets in the UK, and you can tune in to the online ceremony, when the winners will be announced, on 7 December (just after our own competition event – see below!). To find out more and to register for the event, visit the Michael Marks website. We’d like to thank everyone who has supported the press this year and encourage you to check out the work of our wonderful poets! 

We recently announced the winners of our International Poetry Competition, judged by Will Harris. You can find out who won and who was shortlisted in the EAL and Open categories on our website, where you can also register to attend our online awards event on 7 December. Everyone is welcome to attend! You’ll be able to hear from the winners in both categories and also from the judge, Will Harris, who will talk about judging the competition and give a short reading from his work.

‘The Last Days of August’ is copyright © Zoë Brigley, 2021. It is reprinted from Into Eros (Verve Poetry Press, 2021) by permission of Verve. You can read more about the pamphlet on the Verve website.

The poems in Into Eros consider the dangers for women in risking desire, and they tell a story about nature, trauma, and healing. Here, pumpkin flowers, poison sumac, and apple blossoms are as much persons as women are, and their experience are parallel but different. These poems register the value of love after violence. Not possessing or dominating but dwelling with people, with nature – this at last might lead to freedom, and joy. You can read more about it and buy a copy on the Verve website.

Zoë Brigley has three collections of poetry from Bloodaxe: The Secret, Conquest, and Hand & Skull – all three were Poetry Book Society Recommendations. She has also received an Eric Gregory Award, been Commended in the Forward Prizes, and listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Zoë has also published a collection of nonfiction: Notes from a Swing State: Writing from Wales and America (Parthian). She is Assistant Professor in the English department at the Ohio State University and runs an anti-violence advocacy podcast: Sinister Myth: How Stories We Tell Perpetuate Violence. You can find out more about Zoë’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Winner of both the Saboteur Award for Most Innovative Publisher and the Michael Marks Publisher’s Award, Verve Poetry Press is a Birmingham-based publisher. It is dedicated to promoting and showcasing Birmingham and UK poetic talent in colourful and exciting ways – as you would expect from a press that has grown out of the giddy and flamboyant, annual four days of poetry and spoken word that is Verve Poetry Festival, Birmingham.

Added to this is a colourful pamphlet series featuring poets who have previously performed at our sister festival and a debut performance poetry series which sees us working with the brightest rising stars on the UK spoken word scene. We also assert our right to publish any poetry we feel needs and deserves to find print wherever we find it. Like the festival, we will strive to think about poetry in inclusive ways and embrace the multiplicity of approaches towards this glorious art.

You can find out more about Verve Poetry Press on the publisher’s website, where you can also sign up to the mailing list. You can follow the press on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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.

2004

~ oxfordbrookesuni

I hadn’t heard of Section 28 and how it was repealed
in November 2003 in England and Wales but I knew
that taking out the library’s only copy of Oranges Are
Not the Only Fruit would be difficult, so I tried to read
as much of the book as I could behind Harry Potter and
the Chamber of Secrets till the librarian asked what I was
reading and said do your parents know, which made me
turn the colour of my school tie. The librarian smiled like
people do in films before the scene changes to a moody shot
of the protagonist by the sea on a stormy day contemplating
whether to swim in the tidal pool full of seaweed with no life-
guard on duty and said you’re reading a book from the Adult
Section, at which point the babies who were normally crying
stopped and I thought about the Childline poster at school
which now had the word GAY graffitied across the boy on
the phone looking sort of sad with the number 0800 1111
printed in one of those typefaces that tried too hard to be
popular with teenagers and I thought about everything I’d
say if I called up but as the librarian asked me again to put
Oranges back on the shelf even Childline didn’t comfort me
much as I realised the counsellor could be someone like her

by Jo Morris Dixon

News from the Poetry Centre: we recently announced the winners of our International Poetry Competition, judged by Will Harris. You can find out who won and who was shortlisted in the EAL and Open categories on our website, where you can also register to attend our online awards event on 7 December. Everyone is welcome to attend! You’ll be able to hear from the winners in both categories and also from the judge, Will Harris, who will talk about judging the competition and give a short reading from his work.

This week’s poet, Jo Morris Dixon, will be launching her pamphlet online this evening (Tuesday) at 7.30pm alongside other Verve poets who will also be sharing new work: Zoe Brigley, Phoebe Stuckes, and Golnoosh Nour. You can sign up to attend for free. Just visit this page for the Zoom details.

‘2004’ is copyright © Jo Morris Dixon, 2021. It is reprinted from I told you everything (Verve Poetry Press, 2021) by permission of Verve. You can read more about the pamphlet on the Verve website.

Jo Morris Dixon’s debut pamphlet I told you everything reveals how poetry can function as a holding place for difficult experiences and emotions. Through language at once vivid and straightforward, Dixon skilfully addresses coming-of-age themes which are often left unexplored, even in therapy rooms. There is a keen attentiveness to form in these startling poems, ranging from the sonnet to the Golden Shovel. Urgent, complex and searingly honest, I told you everything is a fierce addition to poetry and queer writing in the UK. You can read more about it and buy a copy on the Verve website.

Jo Morris Dixon grew up in Birmingham and now lives in London. She has worked in museums and currently works for a mental health charity. Her poetry has been published in Oxford Poetry and The Poetry Review. She was longlisted for the 2015 Plough Poetry Prize and the 2020 National Poetry Competition.  I told you everything is her debut pamphlet. Read more about Jo’s work on her website.

Winner of both the Saboteur Award for Most Innovative Publisher and the Michael Marks Publisher’s Award, Verve Poetry Press is a Birmingham-based publisher. It is dedicated to promoting and showcasing Birmingham and UK poetic talent in colourful and exciting ways – as you would expect from a press that has grown out of the giddy and flamboyant, annual four days of poetry and spoken word that is Verve Poetry Festival, Birmingham.

Added to this is a colourful pamphlet series featuring poets who have previously performed at our sister festival and a debut performance poetry series which sees us working with the brightest rising stars on the UK spoken word scene. We also assert our right to publish any poetry we feel needs and deserves to find print wherever we find it. Like the festival, we will strive to think about poetry in inclusive ways and embrace the multiplicity of approaches towards this glorious art.

You can find out more about Verve Poetry Press on the publisher’s website, where you can also sign up to the mailing list. You can follow the press on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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.

Foxes

~ oxfordbrookesuni

I lie awake at night thinking of all the times I was told
to stay quiet. All the times I should have said nothing. 

Listen, I am only a mangy fox among the recycling bins,
screeching to no one, chewing on my own tail. I know 

I’m supposed to be checking over my shoulder
for something, but what? I keep expecting 

the yellow window light of other people’s houses
to bust open like a yolk and let me in. I keep waiting 

to be picked up and held until I stop shaking
but I’m difficult to touch. Even the stars 

are absenting themselves to the orange dark.
I sit at home, I lick my wounds. I chose 

all of this, my job, this city, I pulled it close,
over and over with my grubby little hands.

by Phoebe Stuckes 

‘Foxes’ is copyright © Phoebe Stuckes, 2021. It is reprinted from The One Girl Gremlin (Verve Poetry Press, 2021) by permission of Verve. You can read more about the pamphlet on the Verve website.

Her first pamphlet since her debut full collection Platinum Blonde sees Phoebe Stuckes’ trademark poems of high humour and hubris take on a dreamier, more abstract, quality. Perhaps the ‘wise-cracking party girl’ of her earlier work is sensing that, for a while at least, the party is postponed. There isn’t much worth staying up late for any more in these poems. Instead, our character lies awake in bed long into the night or wakes up into a pre-dawn world they barely recognise. And the strange new rural setting they wake to is inviting and also threatening and therefore not to be trusted. Read more about the pamphlet and buy a copy on the Verve website.

Phoebe Stuckes is a writer from West Somerset now living in London. She has been a winner of the Foyle Young Poets award four times and is a former Barbican Young Poet. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Review, The Rialto, The North and Ambit among others. Her debut pamphlet, Gin & Tonic was shortlisted for The Michael Marks Award 2017. She has been awarded an Eric Gregory Award and The Geoffrey Dearmer Prize. Her first full length collection, Platinum Blonde, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2020. You can find out more about Phoebe on her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram (and if you’d like to keep pace with her baking exploits, you can find those here).

Winner of both the Saboteur Award for Most Innovative Publisher and the Michael Marks Publisher’s Award, Verve Poetry Press is a Birmingham-based publisher. It is dedicated to promoting and showcasing Birmingham and UK poetic talent in colourful and exciting ways – as you would expect from a press that has grown out of the giddy and flamboyant, annual four days of poetry and spoken word that is Verve Poetry Festival, Birmingham.

Added to this is a colourful pamphlet series featuring poets who have previously performed at our sister festival and a debut performance poetry series which sees us working with the brightest rising stars on the UK spoken word scene. We also assert our right to publish any poetry we feel needs and deserves to find print wherever we find it. Like the festival, we will strive to think about poetry in inclusive ways and embrace the multiplicity of approaches towards this glorious art. 

You can find out more about Verve Poetry Press on the publisher’s website, where you can also sign up to the mailing list. You can follow the press on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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.

Lines given with a Penwiper

~ oxfordbrookesuni

I have compassion on the carpeting,
   And on your back I have compassion too.
The splendid Brussels web is suffering
   In the dimmed lustre of each glowing hue;
And you the everlasting altering
   Of your position with strange aches must rue.
Behold, I come the carpet to preserve,
And save your spine from a continual curve.

by Christina Rossett

Listen to the Poetry Centre’s Dr Dinah Roe read and discuss this poem.

This week’s poem by Christina Rossetti marks the beginning of ‘The Fiery Antidote’: our semester-long celebration both of Rossetti and of our colleague Dr Dinah Roe’s research about her and the Pre-Raphaelite movement in art and writing. 

We invite you to join us! Our first event is an online discussion group this Thursday (28 October) from 12-12.45pm when we’ll be looking at Rossetti’s poem ‘Shut Out’. You can sign up for the group and find out more about our events via this link. Everyone is very welcome to attend – all you need to do beforehand is read the poem, which you can find here.

Also this week we launch a new Poetry Centre initiative: monthly Instagram poetry prompts! Curated by Poetry Centre Interns Maleeha and Rhiannon, they are designed to spark inspiration. Write a poem in response to one or more of these prompts, which you can find on our Instagram page from 12pm today (Monday), and e-mail them to us (oxfordbrookespoetry@gmail.com) by the end of the week. We’ll select the best and post them on Instagram next week!

‘Lines given with a Penwiper’ was composed on 20 November 1847, when Rossetti was a teenager and caring for her father. It was not published during Rossetti’s lifetime and is in the public domain. You can hear Dinah read the poem and discuss it here.

Born in London in 1830, Christina Rossetti was one of four children (her siblings included the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti). Some of her earliest poems were printed privately, but she also published in the Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ. (You can find out more about the Pre-Raphaelites in Dinah’s essay on the British Library website and hear her discuss them in this video about a recent Ashmolean Museum exhibition.)

One of Rossetti’s most famous poems is ‘Goblin Market’, a long fairy tale-like piece that was first published in Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862, the collection which made her name (despite critiques from figures like John Ruskin, who called the poet’s ‘irregular measures’ a ‘calamity of modern poetry’). You can read a commentary about ‘Goblin Market’ by Dinah on the British Library website.

Often inspired by her Christian faith, Rossetti’s subsequent work (in collections such as A Pageant and Other Poems and Verses) established her as a leading Victorian poet and also a poet for children (Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book).

After her death from cancer in 1894, her brother William Michael Rossetti collected many of her poems in The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti in 1904, but her complete poems were not published until Rebecca Crump published The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti (Louisiana State University Press, 1979-1990). Dinah is currently editing a new three-volume edition of The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti (Longman Annotated English Poets), due for publication in 2025.

Find out more about Dinah’s research on ‘The Fiery Antidote’ page.

Of the shortest day

~ oxfordbrookesuni ~ Leave a comment

What has survived is the belief
that water tastes best today;
the moon offers help through the dark. 

What has survived is the memory,
pullut-rice rolled between palms,
ballcakes in pandan-ginger syrup.

What has survived is the custom,
serving girls even pairs,
adding strength to their futures.

What has survived is the altar,
table lit by red candles,
joss paper burning in the iron pot.

What has survived is together
tasted on the tongue
as ancestors’ faces fade in frames.

by L. Kiew

This week we feature the last of three poems by poets who have appeared in the exciting online festival Poetics of Home – a Chinese Diaspora Poetry Festival which concludes tomorrow (5 October). The festival is co-ordinated by our Brookes colleague Dr Jennifer Wong, and is designed to connect and showcase the diverse works by established and emerging Anglophone poets writing across the Chinese diaspora. The final event, entitled ‘Women Who Write’, features Belle Ling, Tammy Ho, Cynthia Miller, and the Poetry Centre’s own Claire Cox. It is moderated by Jennifer Wong and takes place tomorrow (Tuesday 5 October), from 1-3pm BST. Although tickets are no longer available via Eventbrite, you can contact the organisers for more details of the Zoom link by visiting the Poetics of Home site.The festival is presented in collaboration with Wasafiri and the Institute of English Studies, with the support of the Lottery Fund from Arts Council England. For more details about the festival and to sign up for the events, visit the festival website.

‘Of the shortest day’ is copyright © L. Kiew, 2021. The poem first appeared in The Rialto, issue 95.L. Kiew is a Chinese-Malaysian living in London. She earns her living as an accountant. She holds a MSc in Creative Writing and Literary Studies from Edinburgh University. In 2017, L. Kiew took part in the Poetry School/London Parks and Gardens Trusts Mixed Borders Poets Residency Scheme and the Toast Poetry mentoring programme. She was shortlisted for the 2017 Primers mentoring and publication scheme and was a 2019/20 participant in the London Library Emerging Writers Programme.Her poems have been published in Butcher’s Dog, Ink Sweat and Tears, Lighthouse, Obsessed with Pipework, Tears in the Fence, The Scores and The North among other magazines and websites.L. Kiew’s collaboration with Michael Weston is included in Battalion, available from Sidekick Books. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet was published by Offord Road Books in 2019. Find out more about L. Kiew’s work from her website and follow her on 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.

Beginner’s Wall, Shek O

~ oxfordbrookesuni ~ Leave a comment

Big waves lick boulders above the sea level.
            A typhoon brought salt, now dusty,
over volcanic cliffs, where we sit.
            We pick up small pieces of graphite,
trailing our spot to prove their colouration.
            I lie like seaweed drying for consumption,
arms stretched next to my ears, and stare
            at the sky wide open, seamless with the sea,
a gradient of indigo and turquoise where
            ribbons of sand and foam intersperse.
If you look hard enough, waves from afar
            carry incessant gouges like woodcut. 

A challenge I can’t take without liquid courage:
            rock-climbers set ropes, fix harnesses
and check helmets for each other, trusting
            their weight with muscle strength and grip.
Giving in to gravity, too, is sometimes crucial.
            Let hips sink onto an invisible chair mid-air
for rest. The hard part is to know you won’t fall.
            Tension! Tension! Climbers’ partners
on the ground look up for commands. The language
            one must learn facing speechless crags.
The wind growls, uncritical to recent histories
            of survival out of besieged brick walls.

by Cheng Tim Tim

This week we feature the second of three poems by poets appearing in the exciting new online festival Poetics of Home – a Chinese Diaspora Poetry Festival that is currently underway and continues until 5 October. The festival is co-ordinated by our Brookes colleague Dr Jennifer Wong, and is designed to connect and showcase the diverse works by established and emerging Anglophone poets writing across the Chinese diaspora. It features a wonderfully rich line-up of speakers from all over the world, such as Marilyn Chin, Mary Jean Chan, Susheila Nasta, Hannah Lowe, and Will Harris, who will be taking part in poetry readings and discussions on a range of urgent themes. The festival is presented in collaboration with Wasafiri and the Institute of English Studies, with the support of the Lottery Fund from Arts Council England. For more details about the festival and to sign up for the events, visit the festival website.

‘Beginner’s Wall, Shek O’ is copyright © Cheng Tim Tim, 2021. The poem will soon be appearing in Berfrois, and we’re grateful to the editors there for allowing it to be reproduced here.

Cheng Tim Tim is a poet, teacher and music enthusiast from Hong Kong, currently reading for an MSc in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her poems have found homes in Berfrois, diode, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, among others. She was nominated for Best Small Fiction by SAND Journal in 2020. She is one of the co-founding editors of EDGE: HKBU Creative Journal. She is working on chapbooks which explore Hong Kong’s natural, urban and emotional landscapes, as well as desire and rituals through the lens of tattooing. She loves artworks that heal and provoke. Follow Cheng Tim Tim on Twitter.

Cheng Tim Tim will be reading at the Poetry and Society event today (Tuesday 28 September) at 1pm, and you can join via Zoom at this link. The event also features Laura Jane Lee, Natalie Linh Bolderston, and Sarah Howe.

Later today at 6pm, Poetics of Home presents Cultural Hybridity: Will Harris, Jay G Ying, and Helen Bowell in conversation with Lucienne Loh (co-hosted with the British Chinese Studies Network). Find more details on the Eventbrite page.

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.

Work song of Foxconn

~ oxfordbrookesuni ~ Leave a comment

by Jinhao Xie

This week we feature the first of three poems by poets appearing in the exciting new online festival Poetics of Home – a Chinese Diaspora Poetry Festival. Poetics of Home begins tomorrow (Wednesday 22 September) and continues until 6 October. The festival is co-ordinated by our Brookes colleague Dr Jennifer Wong, and is designed to connect and showcase the diverse works by established and emerging Anglophone poets writing across the Chinese diaspora. It features a wonderfully rich line-up of speakers from all over the world, such as Marilyn Chin, Mary Jean Chan, Susheila Nasta, Hannah Lowe, and Will Harris, who will be taking part in poetry readings and discussions on a range of urgent themes. The festival is presented in collaboration with Wasafiri and the Institute of English Studies, with the generous support of the Lottery Fund from Arts Council England. For more details about the festival and to sign up for the events, visit the festival website.

‘Work song of Foxconn’ is copyright © Jinhao Xie, 2021 and reproduced by permission of the author.Jinhao Xie is a poet born in Chengdu. Their poetry touches on themes of culture, self-hood and the everyday. Their work has appeared in POETRY, The Poetry Review, Gutter Magazine, harana poetry, bath magg, Spilled Milk Magazine, and their poems anthologised in Slam! You’re Gonna Wanna Hear This, edited by Nikita Gill, and their visual poems are included in Instagram Poems for Every Day by the National Poetry Library.You can follow Jinhao Xie on Twitter and Instagram.Jinhao will be reading at the ‘Mapping of Desire’ event moderated by Annie Fan in the Poetics of Home festival on Sunday 3 October at 12 noon (UK time), along with Nicholas Wong and Lady Red Ego. For details and to sign up to attend, visit the Eventbrite page.

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.

two perspectives on a landscape

~ oxfordbrookesuni

i

Now you find yourself in the country,
in the same country where you were born.

Tooth-first, you, a knobbled branch, your hand.
You want reasons for the engine. There are none.

But how it rusts, thinking, listless in the grass,
while you have a mouth of blood and wind.

Spit out the trees, each one you’ve planted,
with nobody else around. Now they stand

on hillsides that always meant a window,
though it slanted slightly in its frame.

Though now you wonder of the window’s
high, neglected corners, you cannot run to –

now you realise you have found yourself
in a landscape you no longer understand.


ii

There are new things you can understand
             in the old way. 

There are old things you can understand
             in a new way.

You sometimes think of you as the où
             without location,

carrying yourself, your own bouquet, to bed-
rooms and searching
             for a place to put it down.

You sometimes think about the old,
frittering away, unread
             books lining their shelves:

an apartment, a bedroom like your own
             palm, fingering the curtains.

You sometimes think about the old ways,
             the old things –

in the garage
             of what you think,
             the new things are all
             hopeless.

by Joshua Calladine-Jones

Our annual competition is closing soon! The Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, judged by Will Harris, closes for entries this Monday (20 September) at 23.00 BST/22.00 GMT. There are two categories: Open and English as an Additional Language. This year, thanks to the generosity of poet Isy Mead, we also have a limited number of free entries available for BAME poets who have been state-educated in the UK. You can find out more about the competition on our website. 

‘two perspectives on a landscape’ is copyright © Joshua Calladine-Jones, 2021. It is reprinted from Constructions [Konstrukce] (tall-lighthouse, 2021) by permission of tall-lighthouse. You can read more about the pamphlet on the tall-lighthouse website.

The poems in this sometimes surreal and experimental pamphlet were influenced by the conditions of the pandemic, with its renewed focus on video-conferencing and other forms of digital technology. Konstrukce is a Czech word, meaning construction and the poetry is assembled from fragments, sentences noted down during online conversations with speakers who use English as a second-hand language, replete with faults, slips, and narratives both intentional and accidental. There are distortions, too, in the sequences, where the poet uses a technique of retranslation to revise literary form, using his own poetic discipline to create a justly memorable pamphlet.

You can find out more about the pamphlet and listen to Joshua read poems from it on the tall-lighthouse website, where you can also buy a copy.

tall-lighthouse has a reputation for publishing exciting new poetry, being the first to publish Sarah Howe, Helen Mort, Liz Berry, Jay Bernard, Ailbhe Darcy, Rhian Edwards, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Emily Berry and many others. Learn more about the press on the tall-lighthouse website and follow tall-lighthouse on Facebook and 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.