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Featured Poet: Abigail Parry

Eyewear is pleased to welcome, this winter-thaw Friday, Abigail Parry (pictured).  Parry is a toymaker and circus skills coach by profession, and spends five months of the year on the festival circuit; in the winter she lives in London, and is studying for a PhD.  She has had poems published in Ambit, The Rialto and Magma, and is currently working on a first collection.  In 2010 she won an Eric Gregory.  She's one of the Young British Poets to especially watch.

Notes on not becoming a werewolf

You feel it first
As an itch in the teeth, a twitch
Of nerves coiled too tight. 
Some vague aperture sliding open  
Between the heart and gut.
Precautions must be taken.

Do not enjoy too much
The quick grey jolt of hare, the split-crate thrill
Of punctured appleskin,
High lonely places, wind,
The supple creak
Of oiled leather. Woods

Are of course best avoided.
Copses, spinneys, anywhere,
In fact, where the strong-sweet bulk
Of horse chestnut crowds too close, where one can raise
The wet note of fresh-churned earth
By digging in the nails. Rivers

Are not to be trusted.  They know
Too much. They nuzzle the base of cliffs and snout
At kitchen doors. They learn
From the granites of the hills, the pulp
Of slick black roots and lovely braids
Unwinding in the weeds. The moon

May be looked at in moderation.
But don’t let it give you any ideas.

Fill your house with mirrors. Watch the clock. 
Speak often. Do not feel
You are safe in the city.  There’s another
Under this one.  Stop your ears
To curlews, vixens, hounds, they’ve tales to tell

If you’ve the ears. And you’ve no idea
What it is to have ears like mine.


poem by Abigail Parry; published online with permission of the poet

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