Poem by Katrina Naomi

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Katrina Naomi (pictured) this Friday. Naomi is originally from Margate and lives in south London.

This year she won the Templar Poetry Pamphlet Competition and the Ledbury Festival Text Poem Contest. Her pamphlet Lunch at the Elephant & Castle will be published by Templar Poetry in October 2008 and launched at the Derwent Poetry Festival. She will also be reading at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November.

She is working on a first collection for 2009.

B Movie

You have to be blonde
or jet black, either way, sister
there’s a lot of dyeing.

You have to forget what you see,
remember aliases,
but don’t get smart.

You’ll get used to the eyes
of the rest of the mob,
they’ll go no further.

You’ll smoke at all hours:
first thing in your silk camisole,
4 am in your fox fur.

You spend days alone,
turning his diamonds in your palm,
arranging imaginary flights to Rio.

You spend nights waiting,
ready by the phone,
pistol out of the bedside drawer.

You know there’s a wife, Italian,
that he’s got children
and you won’t have any of your own.

You know you’ll live
in a series of apartments,
each less elaborate than the last.

poem by Katrina Naomi

Comments

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....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"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...".

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