Return
to me, beloved
and take me on your lap.
Undo my braid
stiff
as buffalo horn
and draw your
fingers
through my hair.
Untie my belt, open
the silk cloth
covering my waist,
let my oiled limbs, my
perfumed skin
envelop you
as the rose
swallows
the bee.
by Shazea Quraishi
News from the Centre: there are only a few weeks left before we launch our first ever poetry pamphlets through ignitionpress! There’s No Such Thing by Lily Blacksell, A Hurry of English by Mary Jean Chan, and Glean by Patrick James Errington will be on sale from 14 February, and there will be several launch events . More details will follow soon!
The Poetry Centre’s exciting reading series gets underway on Saturday 24 February at the Society Café in Oxford with a reading by American poets Christopher DeWeese and Andy Eaton. You can book tickets via our website , where you can also find details of the rest of the spring series.
The acclaimed Jamaican poet Ishion Hutchinson will be visiting Brookes on Friday 16 February to give a lunchtime reading . Although this event is aimed at Brookes staff and students, there will be places available for members of the public. If you’d like to attend, e-mail niall.munro@brookes.ac.uk
‘Ramadasi’ is copyright © Shazea Quraishi, 2018. It is reprinted from Ten Sexy Poems by permission of Candlestick Press.
Notes from Candlestick Press:
Shazea Quraishi is a Pakistani-born Canadian poet, playwright and translator based in London. Her first pamphlet, The Courtesan’s Reply, was published by flipped eye in 2012. The Art of Scratching is her first full-length collection and was published by Bloodaxe in 2015. In 2015 Quaraishi was awarded a Brooklease Grant by the Royal Society of Literature and she also received awards from the British Council and Arts Council England in the same year.
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 Sheep to Tea, Kindness, Home and Puddings. Shazea Quraishi’s poem ‘Ramadasi’ appears in Ten Sexy Poems published in January 2018 in time for Valentine’s Day. You can read more about the pamphlet on the press’ website. Candlestick Press titles are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, as well as by galleries, museums and garden centres.
Oxford Brookes Weekly Poems 