A Swan's Neck on the Butcher's Block E-Book

Jenni Fagan

• Herausgeber: Polygon
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 64

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The new collection from one of Scotland's most original voices. Jenni Fagan converses with the poets of the past; through them, she communes with demons and explores a world that is continually at odds with itself. The poet voyages, as ever, on the outskirts, calling out the nuances of class, of care, of misogyny and brutality. Yet even here, too, in her response, there is always love, humour, hope and defiance. From one of Scotland's most original voices, this collection places the poet's life under the microscope. Each line brims with verve and wit and absolutely soars. It is, at once, heartbreaking and haunting, visceral and challenging and full of raw passion. These poems sing like only someone who has traversed the most arduous roads, pen in hand, can.

Leseprobe

A SWAN’S NECK

on the

BUTCHER’S BLOCK

Dr Jenni Fagan is an award-winning poet, novelist, screenwriter and Doctor of Philosophy; she is published in eight languages. After the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon, Jenni was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists; she has been on various prize lists, including the Desmond Elliott Prize, James Tait Black, Sunday Times Short Story Prize and the BBC International Story Prize. The Sunlight Pilgrims saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. Her third novel, Luckenbooth, was praised in The New York Times Book Review, which named her ‘The Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins’. In 2022 Polygon published Hex as well as her sixth poetry collection, The Bone Library, written during her time as Writer in Residence at the Dick Vet Bone Library. Her memoir, Ootlin, is published by Hutchinson Heinemann. To celebrate two hundred years of Macallan whisky, Fagan was commissioned to write two hundred poems, which were published in a collector’s edition: The Heart of the Spirit.

JENNIFAGAN

A SWAN’S NECK

on the

BUTCHER’S BLOCK

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2024 by Polygon, an imprint of

Birlinn Ltd | West Newington House | 10 Newington Road | Edinburgh | EH9 1QS

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.polygonbooks.co.uk

Copyright © Jenni Fagan, 2024

The right of Jenni Fagan to be identified as the author of this work has been

asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or

transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 84697 676 6

EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78885 680 5

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher acknowledges support from the National Lottery through

Creative Scotland towards the publication of this title.

Typeset in Verdigris MVB Pro Text by The Foundry, Edinburgh

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

For Batshiva & Belle, who brought their claws

CONTENTS

My Heart

Peripatetic

Ootlin

There’s a Problem in the Arts

Ninety Seconds to Midnight

Last Orders

Memorial

Fanged

Orpheus

Who Are You to Say What It Is To Be Living?

Urchin

Pact

Reclamation (or) My Shaman is Better Than Your Shaman

The Butcher

They Come For Me

Sign

Don’t Read the Reports

Heroine

Orphan at the Table

Swan Song

Freak the Fuck Out for Christmas

Halo

Perdition

Swan

The Gift

Vengeful Saint

Rat

Civil Servant

Getting Rid of the Body

So Hurt by All of It, I Thought Death Might Be Nice

Fuck That

Queer Dating

Window

I Don’t Think

On Another One of My Worst Years

No Permission Slip Required

Benediction

Spinster

They Found Something in My Blood

Winter Solstice

Do What You Do

Things Said by XY Chromosomes

Polonium-210

Pre-Nuptial

Wild Winter Hag

Instead of Goodbye

Busy

I Forgot About Love

Ossification

Badger

Abstract Art

Clean Bones

Fuck it

Mental Control Laboratory

Struggling

Home

I Miss You Knowing Me and Being Able to Hold You

Homicidal Motivations

In Another Country

The Boquet

Let’s Bang on About the Moon

Luminary

Mortar

Before He Dies

The Taker

She Played the Trombone, You Know

Triffid

Dead at the Helm

Singing Nina Simone to the Echo

One Day

I’ve Made Houses Perfect

Hope

Thank You

Acknowledgements

MY HEART

She opened her mouth, and a butterfly flew out.

She opened her eye, a chrysalis!

Two bridges slept, not so far away.

A clack of sails. Sunken harbour, mud worms.

Whilst we are on the back step,

you and me. You and me!

Eating our sandwiches (cheddar) you are two,

I am thirty-five, every day we do this,

look down the valley, sat on decking that needs

stripped back and varnished but isn’t,

we are like a couple of little old men

happiest to just sit here, knee by knee.

PERIPATETIC

The very many homes of others

where

I

had to go stay . . .

I learnt to move through

each

one

fast, faster, fastest,

So fast in the end I’d cross a front door only to

walk

straight

out the back,

without looking at a single thing

I

didn’t

like locked doors, or feeling shut in.

OOTLIN

On publication day

my books sit in a warehouse

in the dark, very much alive,

deadly as they ever will be,

whilst I am in the doctors

with my hair falling out,

rashes that won’t go,

skin coming away on my hands;

the roots of a tree

sprout out through my stomach

and pull the doctor down

to where I can whisper (again).

It’s been twenty-five years . . .

of getting sicker and sicker and sicker,

so I am fucking here . . .

in his office;

out the way at least of fascists, for a second,

do something, just one fucking thing . . .

that isn’t looking at ‘care’ or prior ‘drugs’ or ‘assaults’

on my file, or the tattoos on my arms,

or the fatness of my arse,

do fucking something!

Rather than each year just watch me get closer to death.

THERE’S A PROBLEM IN THE ARTS

Abusers, firstly, filing in,

then the cliques,

the tall poppy cutters,

the eternal side-eye,

the kids whose mummies and daddies

made them feel they were

the very most special

those who spit on strangers’ souls

to soothe their ego

say it’s only me me me me me me me me me meeeeee eeeeeeee

eeeeeeememmemememmee –

it’s an industry

for cunts!

Where’s the fucking poetry in it?

They just can’t be adored

enough; hiding their posh qualifications

so they can act like they are authentic, or working class.

So much hating

on the purest talent;

when they see it,

they blink as hard as they can

for a long time:

pretend to all      they can’t see it,

pretend to all      they can’t hear it,

make little digs in public or suck up to absolute vile predators

knowingly, whilst pretending to be feminists,

throwing those who always had far less than them

in their actual life,

under all the buses,

then running them over repeatedly

whilst waving their collections over their heads;

they will do literally anything,

to think that they are – it.

There is a problem in the arts,

I’ve seen so many of our greatest writers be erased –

by all the above

it makes me think of Sandie Craigie,

she would have totally got this.

NINETY SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT