Eyewear is very glad to welcome Emily Dening (pictured) this Friday. She was born in London and lives in Cambridge. Dening studied English Language and Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and is currently working in a sixth form college library.She’s been widely published in poetry journals and in 2003 one of her poems, "Lifeline", was workshopped at the Aldeburgh Poetry Masterclass. I've been following her work closely for the past few years, and can recommend, highly, her good-looking collection, A Stash of Gin, which has just been published by Mainsail.
The Red Trousers
As you swirl them from the bag
magnolia walls throb.
My mouth bubbles platitudes
which you prick,
deft and quick,
sousing me with relish of
my mother’s shudder
at mothy velvet dressing-gown,
stained crêpe de Chine dress
and fug of patchouli,
her shameful desire,
like a secret stash of gin,
for me to be dropped
on someone else’s
doorstep, replaced
by a twinset and pearls.
They gush down your legs.
While I snip and staunch,
you’re singing a song
I’ve never heard.
As you swirl them from the bag
magnolia walls throb.
My mouth bubbles platitudes
which you prick,
deft and quick,
sousing me with relish of
my mother’s shudder
at mothy velvet dressing-gown,
stained crêpe de Chine dress
and fug of patchouli,
her shameful desire,
like a secret stash of gin,
for me to be dropped
on someone else’s
doorstep, replaced
by a twinset and pearls.
They gush down your legs.
While I snip and staunch,
you’re singing a song
I’ve never heard.
poem by Emily Dening
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