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Having spent most of my life studying literature and attempting to write and publish poetry, I feel especially fortunate to find myself the current supervisor of four practice-based doctoral theses and two masters dissertations focused on contemporary poetry here at the University of Reading. As a contribution to World Poetry Day, 21 March 2024, my students have agreed to share a recent poem from their on-going projects.<\/p>\n
Liam Anslow-Sucevic<\/strong> is exploring the archival elegy while writing poems that evoke his hometown of Milton Keynes and his family history as part of the Serbian diaspora.<\/p>\n Maisie Crittenden<\/strong> is completing a part-time MA degree and writing poems that address the ethics and constraints of representation regarding the GRT community.<\/p>\n Andrew Jamison<\/strong>, who has already published three collections with Gallery Press, is contributing to and studying the varieties of form and approach employed by contemporary poets from Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n Katherine Meehan<\/strong>, who published her first collection in autumn 2023, is composing a book-length sequence inspired by the Tarot and applying her discoveries to the nature of ekphratic writing and speech act theory.<\/p>\n Vic Pickup<\/strong>, whose latest collection also appeared last autumn, is writing a thesis on apology in the Mills & Boon author correspondence files at Special Collections and a book of poems evoking the life of one such author. She and Katherine Meehan co-host Reading\u2019s Poets\u2019 Caf\u00e9, which takes place at South Street Arts Centre one Friday evening each month. Vic has also edited a new anthology of Reading poets to be published by Two Rivers Press this June.<\/p>\n Finally, Amanda Walsh<\/strong>, a lifelong Reading resident, is completing an MA dissertation applying Elisabeth K\u00fcbler-Ross\u2019s stages of grieving to help write poems about experiences of living in the town, its history, and changing skyline. I hope you enjoy these examples of their work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Dream<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moss-covered rocks, mountainous ranges that seem to stretch on,<\/p>\n I awake in the centre of this basin, by a long dim stream, silent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From a hillock of stones, a silhouette of my brother emerges,<\/p>\n breathing a grey vapour like a spirit, melding with the cool air.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He approaches, footsteps hurried. His darkness wanes in the pale sun:<\/p>\n full auburn beard, soft eyes, nose like mine, barely any teeth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He speaks to me, \u2018The rain will soon come over. North of that crag.<\/p>\n I need to tell you a few things. Got to be quick. Look in the distance.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Slate clouds drape the crag, masking its grass-filled fissures.<\/p>\n The rain contacts the ground, turning olive foliage dark.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018I didn\u2019t know I was going neither. The clot went from my leg to my chest.<\/p>\n And though I\u2019d make those little digs, I was always proud of you. Take care.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My face strains as the land blackens.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Liam Anslow-Sucevic<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n ars gratia artis<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n she is a paint by numbers<\/p>\n join the dots<\/p>\n trace the border<\/p>\n colour within the lines<\/p>\n sort of girl<\/p>\n <\/p>\n she is the portrait of a lady<\/p>\n still and unmoving<\/p>\n and undoubtedly<\/p>\n aflame<\/p>\n but never all at once<\/p>\n <\/p>\n she is the oil<\/p>\n that spills over her own wrists<\/p>\n in reds and blacks<\/p>\n in charcoal<\/p>\n smudged with spilt wine<\/p>\n <\/p>\n she is a spire<\/p>\n and one can count<\/p>\n the elements of architecture in her eyes<\/p>\n the marble sculpted<\/p>\n within her hands<\/p>\n <\/p>\n she is David and Venus and Pity<\/p>\n hours spent staring at the Mona Lisa<\/p>\n looking for a flaw<\/p>\n looking for anything<\/p>\n attainable<\/p>\n <\/p>\n she is art<\/p>\n but has yet to declare herself<\/p>\n the artist<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maisie Crittenden<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Waiting in the Car for My Mother<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I always seemed to be waiting in the car<\/p>\n for her, after school, outside the butcher\u2019s, The Spar,<\/p>\n Mace, McCarthy\u2019s, Colgan\u2019s, Whyte\u2019s of Crossgar.<\/p>\n A minute, just a minute\u00a0<\/em>felt like an hour<\/p>\n as the window’s raindrops collected each other.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Where was it that I seemed to wait before<\/em><\/p>\n for her, and where will it be, and how long, after?<\/em><\/p>\n gone midnight, at this screen, I wonder.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Passenger, as ever, I gather.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Andrew Jamison<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The Secret Doctrine<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Admit it was mainly the fancy dress that drew you<\/p>\n into the sacristy, the smell of benzoin, the smoke spun<\/p>\n outward from the censor and the coloured glass,<\/p>\n the incorporeal blast of a minor chord, high camp<\/p>\n drama of the monstrance, phantasmagoric & gold.<\/p>\n A latent catechism queries still in the blood\u2014<\/p>\n how is your fear of earth? Prayer is illusive as a spell;<\/p>\n what\u2019s God got to do with it? The whole point<\/p>\n of the Sacrament was bliss; someone else has taken<\/p>\n the reins of knowing what\u2019s what. It was like<\/p>\n the Italian restaurant we used to go to just<\/p>\n for the breadsticks\u2014we could be sure about<\/p>\n one thing and it was free. This way to heaven!<\/p>\n No one believes they\u2019re really evil, deep down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Katherine Meehan\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Pseudonym<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You gave me a name, one you felt fitted me<\/p>\n so that I might flow, not trip off the tongue.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your new name for me puts me at the beginning<\/p>\n and end of the alphabet, perfect for picking from shelves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Baptized anew, I find myself intoxicated;<\/p>\n I think things, go places, do what I\u2019d never admit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I walk down the street and nobody knows<\/p>\n who I am. I\u2019m in the library and they clamour<\/p>\n <\/p>\n for the not-me version of me, the latest<\/p>\n opus, ripe and fresh, to relieve them of their<\/p>\n <\/p>\n mundanity, duty, boredom, which I too<\/p>\n return to, after I\u2019ve slipped off my second skin<\/p>\n <\/p>\n tucked it neatly away under my skirts<\/p>\n and got to work with the mangle and washboard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n