A Few Interiors E-Book

Rowland Bagnall

• Herausgeber: Carcanet Poetry
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Full of playful glitches and malfunctions, this debut collection from an alumnus of Carcanet's New Poetries series and a recent favourite in the pages of PN Review is a poetry of misses and near-misses, distortions and uncertainties. The poems capture a feeling of déjà vu, a sense of something not quite right, out of place, though hard to put your finger on. They are filled with pop-cultural references and registers, responding with a collagist's eye to music, painting, photography, television and film. Frequently funny and even more frequently fun, Bagnall's poems cut across continents, memories, dreams and rooms.

Leseprobe

ROWLAND BAGNALL

A Few Interiors

for my parents

Contents

Title PageDedication I GliderViewpointEvening in ColoradoTotal RecallHothouseSonnetHingeRiver:Rough TerrainCalifornia ZephyrKopfkinoFulcrumThe IncurablesI-5 NorthSubtitleOde on a Han Dynasty Urn II A Few InteriorsIn the FunhouseColonsayDoing MoonlightPause, Lights, ApplauseSwimmersLacunaPortrait and a DreamJet SkiThe ExcavationTangerineUseful PhrasesEavesdropLeeway NotesAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorCopyright

I

But as I travelled hither through the land,

I find the people strangely fantasied,

Possessed with rumours, full of idle dreams,

Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.

Shakespeare, King John, 4.2.143–146

Glider

after Peter Lanyon

Without knowing how or why

                   like trying to remember exactly where

you were exactly this time a year ago

           the launch cable detaches

from the substance of the ground below

                   below the white and blue of the sea or sky

a distanceless shape opening and closing

           with a kind of rushed completeness

and if this had been a failure

                   what exactly did I mean by that?

Like breathing into a mouth that doesn’t

           breathe back or slamming on the brakes

on icy roads covered in salt and grit

                   could you sense a delay

between the two and even if you

           manage to distinguish them

what do you get?

                   Making each time the same pattern

or the same pattern reversed

           everything was as we thought it would be

except that nobody looked like they wanted

                   to be where they were

as if they’d simply wandered

           into (or almost out of) the picture

by mistake, that line almost bending

                   over itself before it thins

and rises up again into a sword

           if sword’s the word.

                   We stood there for ages,

watching it all accumulate, the little

           shudders lingering like new clouds

over wooded hills. As for everything else,

                   winding and unwinding hugely,

filling out the sky, there was a sense

           we’d seen it all before, only

                   in passing or in blinding light.