T. S. Eliot Prize News

Poem of the Week

Poem of the week this week comes from Arundhathi Subramaniam’s When God is a Traveller, published by Bloodaxe. When God is a Traveller was shortlisted for the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize. You can hear Arundathi reading from her collection here.

‘Quick-fix Memos for Difficult Days’

1

Clear
clothes, pillows, books, letters
of the germs of need –
the need to have things mean
more than they do.

Claim verticality.

2

Trust only the words that begin
their patter
in the rain-shadow valley
of the mind.

3

Some nights
you’ve seen
enough earth
and sky
for one lifetime

but know you still have unfinished business with both.

Poem of the Week

Poem of the week this week comes from Kevin Powers’ Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting, published by Sceptre. Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting was shortlisted for the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize. You can hear a reading from his collection here.

‘Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting’

I tell her I love her like not killing
or ten minutes of sleep
beneath the low rooftop wall
on which my rifle rests.

I tell her in a letter that will stink,
when she opens it,
of bolt oil and burned powder
and the things it says.

I tell her how Private Bartle says, offhand,
that war is just us
making little pieces of metal
pass through each other.

Poem of the Week

Poem of the week this week comes from Pascale Petit’s Fauverie, published by Seren. Fauverie was shortlisted for the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize. You can hear Pascale reading from this collection here.

‘Portrait of My Father as a Bird Fancier’

The man with an aviary – the one
sparrows follow as he shuffles along,
helping him with caresses of their wings.
The one a nightingale serenades
just because he’s in pain – that’s
the father I choose, not the man
who thrusts red-hot prongs in their eyes
so their songs will carry for miles.
He is not the kind to tie their wings. No.
My father’s nightingale will pine for him
when he dies. My Papa
with a warbler on each shoulder
and a linnet on his head, the loner
even crows chatter to. He does not
cut the nerves of their tongues
so they will sing sweeter.
When my father’s bullfinch has a bad dream
only his voice can calm it.
The hoopoe warms itself on his stove.
It leaps in the air when he wakes
and rubs its breast against his face.
It can tell what mood he’s in at a glance
and will raise its crest in alarm
if Papa struggles for breath.
My father’s chaffinch can bring him
all the birdsong from the wood.
He does not glue its eyelids
shut so it will sing night and day.
He does not make canaries trill so loud
that the tiny branches of their lungs
burst. I am sure of this, though I am just
an ounce in the fist of his hand.