Poetry London Spring 2010 No. 65 - among many other interesting things - includes a review of the Oxfam DVD Asking A Shadow To Dance, directed by Jennifer Oey, produced by Martin Penny, with 35 poets selected by yours truly. The reviewer, TS Eliot-prize winner, Philip Gross, says, "the project does good service both to Oxfam and to poetry." Also reviewed is my debut British collection, Mainstream Love Hotel, from tall-lighthouse (2009). Julia Bird, Salt poet and good egg, argues that "Swift's poems become truly spirited and involving" when the experimental and lyric fuse, and spots the "verbal refractions" that either "illuminate or merely dazzle" and notes the "skilled and deliberate" formal structuring of the collection. She singles out the poem 'Green Girl in Vermont' for being "endlessly re-readable". Read it for yourself.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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