The Museum of Bus Stop Queues

April 4, 2016April 4, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

Bowling pins holding on to small suns.

Almost all of their work
addresses the theme of retaliation.

They sip time through a straw.

Their book has all the symptoms
of a forgotten ice cream.

‘Our main weakness is probably the universe.’

What of their best quality?

They look upstream.

They are always looking upstream.

by Claire Trévien

This is the final poem from a special trio featuring work by poets who are appearing at one of the two Poetry Centre events in the Oxford Literary Festival. Claire Trévien will be reading alongside Sarah Hesketh and Harry Man tomorrow (Tuesday 5 April) at 4pm. There are more details on the Oxford Literary Festival website. We hope to see you there!

‘The Museum of Bus Stop Queues’ is copyright © Claire Trévien, 2016. It is reprinted from Astéronymes (Penned in the Margins, 2016) by permission of Penned in the Margins.

Astéronyme, n. (French). A sequence of asterisks used to hide a name or password. In this follow-up to her acclaimed debut, The Shipwrecked House, Trévien becomes curator of imaginary museums, indexing objects and histories with a quixotic energy. The stunning central sequence recounts a journey across the Scottish island of Arran, where myths are carved into remote caves and a mountain hides behind a ‘froufrou of gas’. Formally inventive and intricately composed, Astéronymes is a book of redactions – and an elegy for places and people that have been ruined by time, erosion or neglect.

Claire Trévien is an Anglo-Breton poet, editor, reviewer, workshop leader and live literature producer. She is the author of the pamphlet Low-Tide Lottery and of The Shipwrecked House, which was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. She edits Sabotage Reviews, and in November 2013, she was the Poetry School’s first digital poet-in-residence. Her second collection, Astéronymes, has just been published. You can read more about the book on the Penned in the Margins website, and more about Claire on her own site.

Penned in the Margins creates publications and performances for people who are not afraid to take risks. The company believes in the power of language to challenge how we think, test new ideas and explore alternative stories. It operates across the arts, collaborating with writers, artists and creative partners using new platforms and technologies. Read more about its work on its website. You can also follow Penned in the Margins on Twitter and 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 Shipwrecked House II

May 5, 2014April 5, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

After Frank O’Hara

When waves were far enough away
and the pumpkin seeds still as amber
in the treasure chest, the calls tumblingly
came to crook the paintings, writings, all.

Now your voice falls like a coin to the ocean’s floor
and the house is dragged apart by the fractures
of your smiles – the thought of its absence echoes
unbelievably – our breath opens like a stiff drawer.

You are everywhere and nowhere, you are
the unfinished cup of tea and its straw,
dipped like a paintbrush. I want to keep
the yoghurts that went out of date yesterday.

by Claire Trévien

Near Oxford this week? Come along to OutBurst, the Oxford Brookes Festival at Pegasus, which runs from Tuesday to Saturday. Showcasing cutting-edge research from across the university, the festival features a fantastic range of events and activities for all ages: hear some of Oxford’s best young writers in an event hosted by Kate Clanchy; explore the connections between technology and modernist literature with Eric White; join English PEN for an evening about how publishing and human rights campaigns can join forces; hear the results of a collaboration between the Poetry Centre and the Archway Foundation about mental health; and write a haiku inspired by spring and display it in the Pegasus garden. Visit the website to learn more about these and the many other events this week, and book tickets via the Pegasus Box Office on 01865 812150 (11-4pm).

Notes from Penned in the Margins:

‘The Shipwrecked House II’ is from Claire Trévien’s debut collection of the same name, which was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Trévien’s is a surreal vision, steeped in myth and music, in which everything is alive and – like the sea itself – constantly shifting form. You can read more about the collection on the Penned in the Margins website, and hear Claire discuss her work in a Poetry Centre podcast. You can also follow her via her website or on Twitter.

Their recent anthology, Adventures in Form, was awarded a Special Commendation by the Poetry Book Society and was chosen as one of 50 Best Summer Reads by The Independent. You can visit the Penned in the Margins website here to sign up to the mailing list, and follow the publisher on Facebook and Twitter.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass

April 1, 2013April 11, 2022 ~ oxfordbrookesuni

For Angela Carter

At night, the Korrigan’s silkworm
hair lit up the dandelion seeds,
he made stars retract their claws.
By day, his hair was brittle white,
his eyes two eggs of dried-out blood.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass,
the hair, the eyes, must all come off.

At night, he buried his treasure under
the heaving stomach of the dolmen:
love that shined like a trout’s back.
By day, the gold transformed to dust,
and cork, and skins of spiders.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass,
the heart, the lungs, must be cut off.

At night, his voice was smooth as yolk,
he sang of the moon, but not of God,
he scaled, he furred across the range.
By day, his voice muttered and squeaked,
A mousey phlegm played hide and seek.

Wipe the blade clean on the grass,
the songs, the sounds, must be plucked off.

by Claire Trévien

Happy Easter to all our readers! This week’s poet, Claire Trévien, will be launching her new collection, The Shipwrecked House, on Thursday 11 April with a reading at 7.30pm at the Albion Beatnik Bookshop in Oxford. The evening will also feature readings by fellow poets Alan Buckley and Amy Key. There are more details on our Facebook page and on Claire’s own website here.

Notes from Penned in the Margins:

Claire Trévien was born in 1985 in Brittany. She is a poet, critic, and literary translator. Her writing has been published in a wide variety of literary magazines including Under The Radar, Poetry Salzburg Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Warwick Review, Nth Position, and Fuselit. She has published an e-chapbook of poetry with Silkworms Ink, Patterns of Decay, and a pamphlet, Low-Tide Lottery with Salt Publishing. She is the editor of Sabotage Reviews and Noises Off. The Shipwrecked House is her first book, and was published this month. You can read more about it at the Penned in the Margins site here, and follow Claire Trévien’s work on her blog here and on Twitter here.

Penned in the Margins is an independent publisher and live literature producer specialising in poetry and based in East London. Founded in 2004, the company has produced numerous literature and performance events, toured several successful live literature shows, published over twenty-five books, and continues to run innovative poetry, arts and performance projects in the capital and beyond. Their recent anthology, Adventures in Form, was awarded a Special Commendation by the Poetry Book Society and was chosen as one of 50 Best Summer Reads by The Independent. You can visit the Penned in the Margins website here to sign up to the mailing list, and follow the publisher on Facebook and Twitter.