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Poem by Claire Sharpe

Eyewear is very glad to welcome the Canadian poet Claire Sharpe (pictured) this Friday. Sharpe returned to Toronto in 2005 after spending six months in Amsterdam, and six years in England.

Her poetry has been shortlisted for the 2007 CBC Literary Awards, accepted for publication by Contemporary Verse 2, and published in Canadian and UK-based journals, including The Antigonish Review, echolocation, Misunderstandings Magazine, Dream Catcher, Staple, Magma, and Oxford Magazine.

Sharpe's essay on Finnish author Tove Jansson was published in Tove Jansson Rediscovered (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, September 2007). Claire received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where I first met her.

Her poetry is spare, subtle, and carefully evokes mood and mind in interplay. I look forward to her debut collection.


Long light


shed by theme for the outcast.


The tulip, full-bowed, lashed yellow, about to open and expand, to open


And reach. Plant, but deliberately piecemeal; to plant


On a mechanical plane. That silence


In which I wrap myself; stalled engine, and when I turn my head


The siren’s cross and cut, through floodgates, dusk.


poem by Claire Sharpe
An earlier version of this poem appeared in Misunderstandings Magazine, vol. 7, Summer 2007.
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Comments

Michael Kavanagh said…
Do you know, I think I used to work with Claire, about 6 years ago at OUP... I remember a Torontian named Claire who left to study creative writing. I'm sure it must be her! Lovely poem...
Fri May 02, 01:50:00 pm 2008
Claire Sharpe said…
Is that Michael Kavanagh of the Group Internet Department? I do remember the ELT redesign quite fondly. How are you doing?

Claire
Sun May 04, 02:54:00 pm 2008
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