I made a pillow out of iron, a pair of shoes,
I made a tutu, my mother’s hat,
iron lashes for my eyes, iron fingernails,
I made myself a bridle and a belt.
 
I made a baby out of iron, I hammered out
a tree in bud, a nest of yellow beaks.
I smelted, riveted, cast my hands
into bellows. I blew a cumulus of sparks –
 
they found the corners of a room,
a hidden silhouette, they settled 
on a dusty charcoal bed
and from the shadows made a forge.

by Jackie Wills

‘Blacksmith’ by Jackie Wills is copyright © Jackie Wills, 2013. It is reprinted by permission of Arc Publications from Woman’s Head as Jug  (Arc Publications, 2013).

Notes from Arc Publications:

Jackie Wills has published three collections of poetry with Arc Publications, and one with Leviathan. Powder Tower was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and Wills was shortlisted for the 1995 T.S. Eliot prize. In 2004, Mslexia magazine named her one of the 10 new woman poets of the decade. Born in Wiltshire, Wills now lives in Brighton. She was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the universities of Surrey and Sussex between 2009 and 2012.

Woman’s Head as Jug is about women’s experiences of work, the city, menopause and ancestry. The poems have a touch as deft as the seamstresses and other craftspeople who populate the book. They are funny, political and lyrical. Read more about the collection at Arc’s site or from Jackie Wills’ own blog.

Since it was founded in 1969, Arc Publications has adhered to its fundamental principles – to introduce the best of new talent to a UK readership, including voices from overseas that would otherwise remain unheard in this country, and to remain at the cutting edge of contemporary poetry. Arc also has a music imprint, Arc Music, for the publication of books about music and musicians. As well as its page on Facebook, you can find Arc on Twitter. Visit Arc’s website to join the publisher’s mailing list, and to find full details of all publications and writers. Arc offers a 10% discount on all books purchased from the website (except Collectors’ Corner titles). Postage and packing is free within the UK.

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.

They’ve started a tight salsa
when Elisa strolls on, hips round as a drum.

Her band whoops, edges up the percussion
and the bass whips her calves.

She looks at each woman, remembering
how she brought them together,

their babies now workers, mothers,
or fathers, grins at the years they display

in their breasts, waists and eyes,
one thousand, three hundred and three.

She nods to Aleida on congas holding rivers
in her palms and Mathilda, the oldest,

on rhythm guitar, playing just as she’s waited
in a chair by the door, night after night all her life.

Elisa turns to the room, finds the President’s table,
puts a mike to her mouth.

“For this man tonight, twenty lovers,” she jokes
and her eyes won’t leave as she sings

of sun in the citrus, Batista,
all the sweat and fists in the wind,

of a child in a cellar, paths through the cane,
the wings on every island’s shoulder blades.

She sings of the speeches scrolled in his pockets,
of Angola, Mandela, his friend.

She sings of Havana, how it still burns
on maps of the world,

of Martí’s white rose and an exile’s return
to the Island of Youth.

Then she picks up the claves and the crowd
shines the floor with its footwork,

as they dance the way heat breaks
the line of a road, each beat and bell of the salsa,

a gasp in the hand.

by Jackie Wills

© Jackie Wills, 2007

Jackie Wills has been resident poet at, amongst other places, an airport, the Surrey countryside, and with marketing teams at Unilever. Powder Tower (Arc), her first full collection, was shortlisted for the 1995 T. S. Eliot prize and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her second collection, Party (Leviathan), was published in 2000. ‘Love Song for Fidel Castro’ comes from her latest collection, Commandments (Arc, 2007). You can find out more about the book here.

A former journalist, Wills now works as an editor and creative writing tutor. She lives in Brighton with her partner, the South African musician Risenga Makondo, and their two children. Jackie Wills writes a blog about her work, available here.

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

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.