Eyewear is very glad to welcome Michael McKimm (pictured) this blustery October evening in London. He was born in Belfast in 1983 and grew up near the Giant's Causeway. He graduated from the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Warwick in 2004 and won an Eric Gregory award in 2007. He lives in London.
His poetry is published in various journals and anthologies, including Best Irish Poetry in English 2010 (edited by Matthew Sweeney), and he reviews regularly for The Warwick Review. His first collection of poetry is Still This Need (Heaventree Press, 2009).
In autumn 2010 Michael is British Council Writer-in-Residence at the International Writing Program, University of Iowa, USA.
Summer Exhibition
or winter, it’s hard to tell. There’s a golden
swatch that suggests the sun going down
in August, but also a texture like silver-birch,
a nudge towards a cold evening, peat fires
burning, a murmur over a pint, boats wrapped
and tied fast to the harbour; a settling squall.
But if the light is totalling high summer you can
imagine kayaking to Glashedy or Tory Island,
guided past currents by boisterous porpoises,
watching the crab catch come in, bartering
for the freshest fish on the pier, grilling outdoors.
Either way, it will be blowing a gale up there,
the sort that shakes you to your senses.
Either way, it draws in the eye, it welcomes.
(‘Malin Head’, Norman Butler, RA)
poem by Michael McKimm; photo credit by Liam Davenport (2009)
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