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Poetry Focus On: HARRY MAN


Harry Man, young British poet
Harry Man was born in 1982 and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. He has performed work at Glastonbury festival, Reading, Latitude and at NextFest in Alberta Canada among others.  Last year he collaborated with Canadian contemporary dancer and choreographer Jennifer Essex on her production for the London College of Fashion in the Cochrane Theatre in Holborn.  He works as a digital editor for an independent publishing house near his home in South London. 


Not Fixed His Canon

I have scanned the headlines a hundred times,
and know the perfect way to poach an egg.

My theatrically posed electrical guts
are on display through the roof of my head. 

Here my parts are highly-prized
by the brave or the certified.

My outpourings are the stuff of office legend
and the game is up, it was me all along –

I swallowed the fiscal year final accounts
and the list of fourth floor first aiders to avoid capture.

I've lengthened the lives of your lost pets
and your permits, your pencilled catalogue pages 

your round robin jokes and cautionary notes
the unflattering discs of your buttocks.

But I can’t be the hero forever, I get old
and spill food all over myself,

I drink too much, or overexpose,
or become idle in the middle of instruction.

During operations I need a bypass
or risk losing your history forever. 

And acting as though nothing has happened
isn’t acting anymore, it is how it is

on the tip.

poem by Harry Man; published online with permission of the author.

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