The squirrels are dead by Miriam Gamble

Having a wonderful trawl through a list of contemporary poets and this collection by Miriam Gamble just stood out. Not only for the title but the way the poems imagine the fantastic in the every day.

A sleeper is described (in her poem Interface)...

                                                       Your breath gutters

like a stuck pig's , your eyelid leaks an underwater tear.
There is havoc at the gallery you say, taking
my wrist. And Plato's on the river bed. Then you roll over
                                                       without so much as a 'Help me'.

Another poem imagines a journey to make a call on The Confidential telephone - this act becomes more and more impossible as the poem describes it happening - a nicely-judged paradox that also chills in the manner of some of Peter Bennet's darker moments.

And that is without even mentioning the squirrels.

Miriam Gamble now lives in Glasgow. Lucky Glasgow! You can get hold of the book from Bloodaxe here http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1852248688

Moment of possibility

Sometimes in poems a+b=z.

That moment of transition is something that I hunt out.

Here is an example from Peter Bennet that I return to from the end of his poem the Doll (The Glass Swarm 2008):

...And later, when my light stays on
night after night as I grow fatter
and try to feed its canvas face
with doll food from a doll-sized spoon,
I'll teach it that you told me what to do.

Another from Elizabeth Rimmer from her poem Marrying a Selkie (The Eildon tree magazine 2012):

...He does not think he disapproves,
but all the same on moonless nights
he thinks of women knitting, trays
of tea and scones, with rhubarb jame
blood red on flowered saucers,
and the sound of heads, soft-thumping
into baskets, while the needles click.

And finally from Celso Emilio Ferreiro (Eiquí Será):

Quero morrer eiquí (cando me chegue
a hora da viaxe que me aguarda).
Eiquí  niste silencio
de pompas arroladas,
niste vento que dorme nos piñeiros
un profondo sono de arelanzas.

I would like to die here (when I arrive
at the journey's hour that I hope for).
Here in this silence
of still doves
in this wind that sleeps in the pines
a deep dream of desire.

You can hear the full poem sung here http://celsoemilioferreiro.org/2012/01/%E2%80%9Ceiqui-sera%E2%80%9D-poema-de-celso-emilio-ferreiro-na-voz-de-m-a-gomez-naharro/

Peter Bennet tweet poetry - more

Cannot resist more from Peter Bennet. This is culled from the new and selected works in Goblin Lawn. Gorgeous stuff.

poetandgeek poetandgeek.com 

Let me affirm that what I have not done Remains a plant so valueless That I have never learned its shape or name

now Favorite Reply Delete

Look for the poem Ha-ha.




More on Flambard Press here http://www.flambardpress.co.uk/books/show.php?book=772&author=peter.bennet.

Note the Eric Ravilious woodcut on the front cover btw - a Sussexman (by birth? but certainly inclination) http://www.ericravilious.co.uk/

Peter Bennet tweet poetry

"a most original, erudite and human collection of poems placed in Bennet's familiar and alchemical Northumbrian home landscape - a worthy Poetry Book Society Choice."

Peter Bennet lives in rural Northumberland near the Wild Hills o'Wanney, a strangely accoustical landscape which inspired the ballad-writer James Armstrong, and gave the young Kathleen Raine her first sense of another, more essential world. The Glass Swarm the collection from which this Tweet poetry is taken unites skilful random rhyme and lightly handled traditional forms with characteristic imaginative power and dark humour. The poems combine an unusually broad range of reference with surprising intimacy, not least in the intricate sequence ‘Folly Wood’, which takes as a starting point the Twelve Gates of the English alchemist George Ripley.

poetandgeek poetandgeek.com 

as I grow fatter And try to feed its canvas face with doll food with a doll sized spoon I will teach it that you told me what to do

10 seconds ago Favorite Reply Delete

This is an extract from the poem The Doll a poem both intimate and sickening in sonnet form.

More on Peter Bennet and this title here:
http://www.flambardpress.co.uk/books/show.php?book=995&author=peter.bennet

Buy The Glass Swarm (recommended course of action) at any good bookshop or send a cheque to Flambard Press, Holy Jesus Hospital, City Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2AS. Or go browse Flambard's other offerings.

And gosh why did I remember this book as being red? I had to look for it for ages. The cover of course is orange but the poems are red.