Anamnesis E-Book

Iona Lee

• Herausgeber: Polygon
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 39

Beschreibung

Iona Lee's debut collection charts the journey of the writer, artist and performer into adulthood. Written in a unique voice, Iona playfully toys with thematic devices in this entertaining exploration of art and artifice, absence and impermanence, truth and tale telling. Characterised by a deep love of language, its music and its magic, these poems reflect on memory, the future and other hauntings. Wittily observed, this collection is an attempt to connect the stars into tidy constellations, and to join the tiny, inchoate dots of self into something traceable and translatable. Humorous and self-aware, gentle and philosophical, Anamnesis is written in the knowledge that in telling one's life-story, one creates it.

Leseprobe

ANAMNESIS

‘I was intrigued and delighted by the originality and wit, the here-and-now “peculiar Eden” of the world she creates. Youthful, sexy, sharp, ferally female, funny’

LIZ LOCHHEAD

‘Iona’s poems hatch plucky, ponderous and pulsing; or do I mean louche, lithe and lasering? They’re all of that, maybe more’

MICHAEL PEDERSEN

‘Iona Lee is an exceptional poet, her work is articulate and perceptive and brimming with tenderness and authenticity. Anamnesis is compelling and beautiful, it is an exquisite poetry collection’

SALENA GODDEN

‘The standout voice of her generation, Lee performs open- heart surgery on the English language’

DARREN McGARVEY

‘Dazzling. Witty. Playful. Wild. Ingenious. It’s easy to run out of adjectives when you’re describing Iona Lee’s astonishing first collection. “Is all fire the same fire?” she asks. Definitely not. These are poems of such energy and brilliance they will continue to burn in the memory long after the book is closed’

JOHN GLENDAY

‘Iona’s collection is a marvel. Full of beauty, wit, wisdom and surprise, delivered with the assurance of a poet who knows exactly what they are doing, it is to be treasured’

HANNAH LAVERY

‘A door, a window, a rupture? The familiar openings and out- pourings of Anamnesis are made strange and sacrosanct by Iona Lee, a skilful poet with a mastery of language. This startling debut is equal part stained glass as it is blood-stained’

DEAN ATTA

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2023 by

Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

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 © Iona Lee, 2023

The right of Iona Lee 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 632 2

EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78885 573 0

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

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

The publisher gratefully acknowledges investment from Creative Scotland towards the publication of this book.

Typeset in Verdigris mvb by The Foundry, Edinburgh

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

CONTENTS

SECTION I

Taking a Thought for a Walk

Lifting the Skirt

A Thousand Little Lives

The Simulation Game

Object Theatre

The Black Cat

Gallus

The Past Is Just a Tale We Tell

Suspend Your Disbelief

Beneath the Dead Man Mountain

We Two, Haloed, Hued

Notation

Lullaby For the Ferryman

Balancing

Girls

Bouncy Castles

In Lucie’s Cabin

The Gardener

I Echo

SECTION II

The Big Dark

You Burn Me

Spell for Revelry

Play Thing

An Image of an Image of an Image

Abandon

Outpour

The Magic Word

Clink

Augmented Reality

Things That Are

View From a Train Window

On Receiving Unsolicited Poetry From Men That I Have Never Met

A One-Sided Conversation (i)

A One-Sided Conversation (ii)

Downfall

Anamnesis

Thin Place

Small World

Haruspex

Graveyards and Gardens

Nocturne

Love Poem

Morning After Elegy

Bowerbird

Acknowledgements

anamnesis [n.]

an-am-nes-is

– recollection, especially of a supposed previous existence

– insight, moments of unusual clarity

I

The first line thrown.

A tether tying me

to being.

TAKING A THOUGHT FOR A WALK

In art school I was told that Paul Klee described his studio

as being like a garden. At least – this is something that I recall.

When I was four, I watched the tattered bath mat reclining

like a gutted glove puppet on the cork floor and thought to myself

I will remember this – somehow, I still do.

I read somewhere that we walk through life backwards.

Words are not necessarily true just because they sound good. Nevertheless,

I believe in the poetry of that, like I believe in a painting’s horizon.

I have watched my home receding through the slow rear-view mirror

of a car. I know how distance causes scenes to coalesce and flatten – yet

some instants glint, distinct as streetlamps, don’t they?

So, for poetry’s sake, let’s say that it is true

that every morning, after breakfast, Klee would visit his studio

to see – in the subtle tilting of a new light – what each piece needed to grow.

Abstract art is meaningless as music.

For Klee, colour was mystical,

and over time his once depictive paintings disassembled themselves,

fragmenting, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue, into a peculiar Eden.

LIFTING THE SKIRT

For Sheela-na-gig

flash of flesh

sudden as ‘is’

becomes ‘was’

pink as the sun

through an ear or