Featured Poet: Meryl Pugh

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Meryl Pugh (pictured) this Friday. Pugh was born in 1968, and grew up in Wales, New Zealand, East Anglia and the Forest of Dean. She was educated at Queens' College, University of Cambridge and the Institute of Education, University of London.

In 2003, she was selected as a Jerwood/Arvon Young Poet and left teaching soon afterwards, in order to spend more time writing. She was shortlisted for the 2005 New Writing Ventures poetry prize, and awarded a Hawthornden Residential Fellowship that same year.

Pugh has reviewed for Poetry London and Poetry Review, and poems have appeared in various publications, including Entering the Tapestry (edited by Graham Fawcett and Mimi Khalvati, Enitharmon, 2003) and Reactions 5 (edited by Clare Pollard, Pen and Ink Press, 2005). A pamphlet, Relinquish (Arrowhead Press), was published in 2007.

Pugh lives in East London, and works as a library assistant. Last year she was awarded a Distinction in the MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. I for one await her debut full collection with much anticipation.

Story

She opened her mouth: before she could speak
the One Before climbed out,
hauling itself across molars and tongue.

Her eyes watered, her nose oozed
and still the caul dragged over
her bleeding lips, distended jaw.

Flicking its skirt clear of the mess,
The One Before stepped free,
pulsing and stretching, opening its mouth

in a yawn or a roar that didn't end,
that stretched, then rolled back the skin,
turned the whole body inside out.

Stuck to the membrane, a tiny creature –
all pinafore and wisp of white hair –
stirred, looked up, prepared to speak:

poem by Meryl Pugh

Comments

Katrina Naomi said…

Good to see Meryl's work up here - great poem. Thanks, Katrina

Mon Mar 15, 08:42:00 am 2010

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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