THE MELITA HUME SHORTLIST 2014: DAISY BEHAGG (4 OF 11)

Daisy Behagg (pictured), born in 1987, grew up on the south coast, and attained a BA and MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University, both with distinction. She was the first winner of the Templar portfolio prize in 2014: her winning short pamphlet Cockpit Syndrome will be published in May. In 2013 she won the Bridport prize for poetry, and was long-listed for the Cinnamon debut collection prize.

Her work has appeared in The Rialto, Poetry Wales, The North, Ambit, The Warwick Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Stand. She currently lives in Bristol, teaches creative writing and edits for online arts journal New Linear Perspectives.

THE SINGING OF THE REAL WORLD

You could say it was light,

with its talent for reading

the true thoughts of objects

– light speaking

the language of motion.

He threw a handful of sand,

saw how the light revealed in it

a constellation's glitter

for briefest moments, saw

the moving potential for glass

suspended – falling – then

he saw the hidden verb

in everything, objects shaking free

of their tenses – the window

a perfectly framed article

of pane and wood, solid, and yet

he could hear it singing

underneath – the shattering’s

moment of hung brilliance

– the fall.

Comments

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. What do I mean by smart?

"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...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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