The Saturday poem today featured another woman (only the third this year - remember I am keeping count). Alice Oswald has just become the first recipient of the Ted Hughes prize, a £5000 annual award established by Carol Ann Duffy when she became Poet Laureate.
Written from a little girl's perspective, this poem is quite spooky, I'm looking forward to getting the book and reading the rest of this collection.
Daisy
I will not meet that quiet child
roughly my age but match-size
I will not kneel low enough to her lashes
to look her in her open eye
or feel her hairy wiry strength
or open my mouth among her choristers
I will not lie small enough under her halo
to smell its laundered frills
or let the slightest whisperiness
find out her friendliness
because she is more
summer-like more meek
than I am I will push my nail
into her neck and make
a lovely necklace out of her green bones
Alice Oswald
Alice Oswald
When we were over at Jaffe and Neale's the other week they had some Alice Oswald and I was very tempted by one of her books, but ended up with the Answering Back instead, so maybe now I have to go back and buy it.
ReplyDeleteSome unusual images in that poem, not 'flowery' at all
thanks for sharing
martine
poetry book buying is such an addictive thing, I am incurable now I am glad to say...! Thrift by alice oswald from same collection is also on the guardian website and that is also very haunting and robust all at once x
ReplyDeletePsychotic, but good! I likes it!
ReplyDeletehello TFE, glad to have you visit!!
ReplyDelete