The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Fri 2/1/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Mattresses

Tipped down the embankment, they
sprawl like sloshed suburban wives,

buckled and split, slashed by rain,
moulded by bodies dead or disappeared
and reeking with secrets.

A lineside museum of sleep and sex,
an archive of thrills and emissions,
the histories of half-lives
spent hiding in the dark.

Arthritic iron frames might still be worth a bit,
but never that pink quilted headboard,
naked among thistles, relic
of some reckless beginning, testament

to the usual miracle: the need to be close,
however it stains and bruises.

Jean Sprackland

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Jean Sprackland was born and brought up in Burton-on-Trent and now lives in Southport, Merseyside. She studied English and Philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury, then taught for a few years before beginning to write poetry at the age of 30. She has held residencies in schools and universities, and is a tutor for the Arvon Foundation. She also works in education, training and consultancy for organizations including the Poetry Society and the Poetry Archive. In 2004 she was one of the judges of the Arvon International Poetry Competition.

Her first poetry collection was Tattoos for Mothers Day (1997), which was shortlisted for the 1998 Forward Poetry Prize (Best First Collection), and her second collection, Hard Water (2003), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, was shortlisted for the 2003 T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. It includes a sequence of poems, 'No Man’s Land', which is the result of a collaboration with photographer David Walker involving the East Lancashire Road which links Liverpool and Manchester.

In 2004 Jean Sprackland was named by the Poetry Book Society as one of the ‘Next Generation’ poets. With Mandy Coe, she wrote Our Thoughts are Bees: Working with Writers and Schools (2005). Her third collection of poetry is Tilt (2007), winner of the 2007 Costa Poetry Award.


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:hi:

RL

[xchrom]

1. all i can think of is barbara streisand singing --

memories...

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. a good rainy day poem, me thinks.

:hi:

[Gonzo Gardener]

3. Oooh.

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

4. Oooh to you too!

:hi:

RL