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2015 MELITA HUME POETRY PRIZE SHORTLIST FOCUS: DAVID SPITTLE

As they say in show biz, last but not least.... and it is true, David Spittle is among equals as he completes our list today - this gloriously sunny hot London day in June -  of the 12 superb young poets shortlisted for this year's Melita Hume Poetry Prize... who will the winner be, come Monday? Only our Judge Toby de las Rivas really knows for sure, at this stage, as we draw our breath, and await his considered report...

David Spittle (pictured) is currently completing a PhD on the poetry of John Ashbery in relation to Surrealism at Newcastle University. He has published reviews in Hix Eros and regularly contributes to PN Review. David’s poetry has been published in 3am, Zone, the delinquent, and is soon to be translated into French courtesy of Black Herald Press. In addition to poetry, he has written the libretti to three operas, performed at various venues around Cardiff and at Hammersmith Studios in London. In 2014 David was commissioned to write a song cycle for the Bergen National Opera.

Radiator
White is where humming plaster
bumped the room in here, wishing
a corner of skirting ears held on
un on un on grill on us onus of piping.

Thermal fluting medium erring air
ruts pump the whom, butter caught
rust. I’m all for it furnishing in here
if cube room cotton is filling.

White is bare celery square
plotting like no Pinky but hypocaust
Brain and carpeting probably
groan house of me waking my

oxygen bleeding treat heating
and and and and the lapse before
feeling it, touch before tingling.
In heaven everything is fine

and they massage the room temp:
they bust cosy in framework;
real bust splinter of industry being
scabbed inglenook and reddening

everyday; brought up to panting
waking us tensions in sighing on
us and on and on… gulp heavy
-er until convection is hot visible

caught butter where Pinky white
wishing of Brain me out. Groan my
burst room on us, on un-divided
filling bare swallow convecting us

but bone and touch into (you’ve got
your good things and I’ve got mine).
Exposed is energy when exchanged
together, feeling on switched off.

 POEM COPYTIGHT THE AUTHOR 2015
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