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Poem By Samantha Jackson

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Samantha Jackson (pictured) this Friday.

Jackson is a poet and commissioning editor based in London. She graduated with a first class honours degree in English Literature from the University of East Anglia in 2000. During her time at UEA she undertook poetry workshops under the tutorage of Esther Morgan. Jackson went on to complete a postgraduate diploma in Publishing, during which she worked briefly at Carcanet Press. Jackson currently works commissioning books for Pearson.

Her poetry is alert to the sensuous and the symbolic, and is influenced by poets such as Redgrove, Plath, Keats, Swinburne and Baudelaire. Jackson is one of the promising younger British poets I have included in the Selfridges 100th birthday project, and a version of the poem below can also be found displayed at the flagship shop in London.

French Gilded Mirror, circa 1720

You’re winking at me again,
flashing your glass
across this crowded place.

I’m caught in your bottom right, a peninsula,
jutting out from the sea of mirror,
swirled in by a grooved border

snaking curls around my floating face,
adorning me in a Medusa crown,
oh the delight of a Baroque frame.

From office worker to femme fatale,
wan before and now a queen,
Rococo dancer dressed in shimmers,

drunk on crystal, washed in light,
marooned in heaven with gilded harps, golden cherubs, vine motifs,
not too much detail,

eyes pearled over, spoony smile;
I’m in the grove of fallen angels,
sunk in silver, too late to leave.

poem by Samantha Jackson
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Comments

Jacq Burns said…
A beautiful poem, languid and sumptuous. More please.
Tue Jan 25, 09:54:00 am 2011
Harry said…
That, my friends, is a bloody good poem.
Sun Jun 03, 01:05:00 pm 2012
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