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| Abigail O'Hanlon, young British poet |
My first Focus poet is Abigail O'Hanlon. O'Hanlon, born in 1989, is currently studying Creative Writing & English Literature at Kingston University, Surrey. I have selected this poem to showcase her intelligent, stylish work because it intersects with my own interests in Japan, and elegant, formal poetic argument.
Tomoe
Tomoe Gozen (~1157–1247) was a Japanese female warrior, said to have fought alongside samurai.
By all
accounts, you were beautiful -
but what
left is there to show for it?
Written
legend, painted brushstrokes,
coral-bright
colour; ink-lines and a
printed
pattern distinctly of that era.
Little more
than gaudy daubs then,
but still,
when seen with human eyes
bring a
shade of you into being again.
Can we
imagine you as you were?
Not as some
painted doll-like figure,
an image
grown from elevated tales,
but as a
warrior, full of rage and bravery,
adorned with
lacquered battle armour like
a beetle's
bright casing, and swept hair,
if not with
the same gloss of the ink
used to
paint it, then just as dark.
Did you ride
into battle as a samurai;
as fearless
and ruthless as any man,
with
resolute acceptance of your fate?
Can we say
you rode and walked among
the enemies
of your master, your blade
through each
one like a cleaver clean
through
bone, and gone, and gone,
until there
were no more to resist?
Were you
ever more than a spirit of war?
Muddled
tales divide you – we only see
shadows cast
by your life, as from a match
held up
against a jagged cavern wall.
Truth, in
time, misconstrued; spooled
through a
myriad of looms, then distilled
into a neat icon, as are the rest of us when
into a neat icon, as are the rest of us when
seen by eyes
of others, not quite known.
poem by Abigail O'Hanlon; published online with poet's permission.
