Skip to main content

Poem by Penelope Shuttle

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Penelope Shuttle (pictured here) to its pages. She is one of the best British poets writing, and the long poem sequence contained in her forthcoming collection, recently excerpted in The Poetry Review, is staggeringly beautiful.

She lives in Cornwall and is the widow of poet Peter Redgrove (1932-2003). Together they wrote the ground-breaking feminist studies on menstruation, The Wise Wound, and its sequel, Alchemy for Women.

Shuttle has published many collections of poetry, including Selected Poems (Oxfordpoets/Carcanet) in 1998, which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, as were two other of her books.

Her new collection, Redgrove's Wife (Bloodaxe, May 2006) looks back at her life with Peter, and the processes of loss and grief.

She has a grownup daughter, Zoe, who works in the field of rewnewable energy. She is a Hawthornden Fellow, and a Tutor for the Poetry School. Her work is widely anthologized, and can be heard online at The Poetry Archive, and read on the Poetry International site.

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1532

http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/html/Clients/Penelope_Shuttle

http://uk.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/27431


Redgrove's Wife

Pity Redgrove's Wife?
I think not.

Praise Redgrove's Wife?
Why not?

Kiss n'snog Redgrove's Wife?
I dare not.

Be-jewel Redgrove's Wife?
With topaz and coral?
I will not.

Publish Redgrove's Wife?
I shall not.

(But I shall).

Forget Redgrove's Wife?
No, I have not.

Question Redgrove's Wife?
Not yet, not yet.

Confuse Redgrove's Wife?
I need not.

Fear Redgrove's Wife?
Oh fear not.

Dream of Redgrove's Wife?
Yes, night after night.

Translate Redgrove's Wife?
Why not,
she's not made of tin.

Amaze Redgrove's Wife?
Leave that to Redgrove.


(written as a wedding anniversary poem for Peter in 2001)


poem by Penelope Shuttle
Title poem of forthocming collection from Bloodaxe

photo credit: Lyn Moir
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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....
3 comments
Read more

"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...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...
1 comment
Read more