Skip to main content

2015 MELITA HUME POETRY PRIZE SHORTLIST FOCUS: ANNA MACE


Eyewear will be announcing the winner of the Melita Hume Poetry Prize in early June.  We are now halfway (at number 6) through our alphabetic posting on each of the 12 shortlisted poets.  I include a copy of the whole list below as well, to jog your memories.
 
 
 
Anna Mace has an interest in modernist, symbolist and experimental poetry traditions.  Within her multi-disciplinary approach she is keen to explore relationships between text, art, science and performance.  Recent work includes, collaborative project and publication, Revolve:R with film responses to her poetry by artists, Rammatik, One Five West and Maria Anastassiou. She will be poet in residence for the National Trust, summer 2015.  She has lived in Europe, India and Japan but now resides in Bristol, UK. 
 
POET IN RESIDENCE FOR THE NATIONAL TRUST, SUMMER 2015
 
 
Not I

 

It was one to remember, 

this one,

(weighted like a holy book).

More, {like scrunched up wings}

sought Kafka, for glimpses

of the world.  Melete on the left,

her shadow a compass, <Take a

chance on the 4-1-4, wait for me? >

Posting moments gratefully,

celebrating with pride

{like a framed odyssey}.  <It was

 

impossible to fail>, she said.

So we got married in a

single breath.  The possibility

of union was exciting atoms with                        

our fingers; vibrating form to

thought.  Puncturing fantasies we

tucked them urgently into secrets

{like pigs in blankets}. 

More, faithful we,

{like messages folded into promises},

hoped EPICAC would re-write the future.

 

He, showed upside-down worlds

and fading light {across distorted sight},

without human lenses. 

We watched men {½ Hitler, ½ Jesus},

<peel back and step inside>; purposeful,

{like cockroaches

crawling between creases}.  The

smudged colours of cut-out worlds,

where [wise] Solomon built a headstone

to artists: <[here lies] The Music Of The Spheres>.

Bleeding black patterns

 
snaking between centuries

{like words date-stamped, for return}.

More, deluded,

{like battling universes virtually},

creators exploded bombs perfectly.

Captured photos, our dust will

<always leave a trace>.  [Here lies]

progress; Paratheses.  {[Pause].  Infinity}.

Setting sail into an abyss,

it was an epic[AC] journey, {I} we said,

{like all our favourite dreams}.
 
 
POEM COPYRIGHT THE AUTHOR 2015

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".