Eleanor Among the Saints E-Book

Rachel Mann

• Herausgeber: Carcanet Poetry
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 49

Beschreibung

A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation 2024 In her second collection, Mann wrestles with the questions and possibilities raised when trans identity, faith and the limits of myth and language intersect and are tested. Eleanor Among the Saints is a study in the queer joy found in counter-factuals and fantasy, shaped through the prism of the disputed story of Eleanor Rykener, a medieval trans woman, seamstress and sex worker.

Leseprobe

Eleanor among the Saints

Rachel Mann is a priest, writer, theologian, and broadcaster. She has written fourteen books of prose, criticism, poetry, and theology. Her poetry has been highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Best Single Poem and is widely anthologised. She is a well-established radio broadcaster and regularly contributes to BBC Radio 4’s Thought For The Day. Currently she is Archdeacon of Salford and Bolton in the Diocese of Manchester, UK.

Every effort has been made by the publisher to reproduce the formatting of the original print edition in electronic format. However, poem formatting may change according to reading device and font size.

First published in Great Britain in 2024 byCarcanet Press Ltd,Alliance House,30 Cross Street,Manchester M2 7AQ.

This new eBook edition first published in 2024.

Cover: The Lady and the Unicorn: À mon seul désir, c.1500 (Musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris). Image © Alamy

Text copyright © Rachel Mann, 2024. The right of Rachel Mann to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988; all rights reserved.

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Ebook ISBN: 978 1 80017 382 8

The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England.

CONTENTS

ELEANOR AMONG THE SAINTS

Embroidering a Priest

Substitutions

Eleanor, in the Beginning

Eleanor Constructs a Father

Eleanor’s Boast

Eleanor Dreams

Eleanor among the Saints

Is it a surprise

I have come to accept

Once when I was young

Eleanor Constructs a Mother

Aquinas On Being

Eleanor as Julian as Margery

Eleanor as a Sixteen Year Old Murdered Trans Girl, What is Known

Eleanor and Rolandina in the City of God

Ash Wednesday

Eleanor as Lyric Poet

Blood Sport

Eleanor Attends a Funeral for a Former Self

Eleanor as Widow

St Peter, Cheap, December 1394

PRAISE

Praise (1)

Ash Wednesday in the City of God

A Morning Prayer

Day of Resurrection

Physician Heal Thyself

Whitsun

Humble Access

Common Prayer

Thou That Takest Away

An Evening Prayer

Praise (2)

Earth to Earth

Domestic Chaplain

Feast of the Epiphany

Burial

Praise (3)

Fylde Coast Apocalyptic

A CHARM TO CHANGE SEX

A Charm to Change Sex (1)

Seven Proof Texts on a Transitioned Body

A Charm to Change Sex (2)

After

Deleted Lines

Decade of Prayer

#TDOR

Night Questions

A Charm to Change Sex (3)

Envoi

Notes

Eleanor among the Saints

ELEANOR AMONG THE SAINTS

‘Therefore I must be intimate with you, and lie in your bed with you. Daughter, you greatly desire to see me, and you may boldly, when you are in bed, take me to you as your wedded husband…’

– The Book of Margery Kempe

Embroidering a Priest

In the beginning, hem and line of thread,

A tug, a song of praise, arms raised orans-wise

Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus

Let those with ears hear: Love and love.

Before he enters Sanctuary, I shall speak

Direction of twist, all those loops whipped, corded,

Doubled and open, thrill of flounce and picot.

I stitch him slow, so slow

He doesn’t recognise his nearness to completion,

He shall appear ex nihilo, blessed with cordonnet, beautiful

Embellishment, if only he knew my skill,

Such relief, my talent. When he raises Host

He I we shall be complete, he will forget (we all do)

The mysteries of his making, a birth. He will be

All flounce, a skin, layers of bride mesh,

He shall know folds.

Substitutions

For seam read rip

For rip read stitch

For stitch read thread

For thread read tear

For tear read notion

For notion read button

For button read hole

For hole read dressed

For dressed read bare

For bare read scared

For scared read cut

For cut read tears

For tears read rags

For rags read scraps

For scraps read all

For all read all

Eleanor, in the Beginning

Sew me, sew me weird, stitch me fingers, teeth,

My lids and legs too, sew me new, together/

Apart, stitch me skill and fright,

Sew me not dolly, not plaything, but monster,

Thing of nightmare, all agency, free finally of what

You’d make me; sew me into escape, O

God of thread, shoddy, scrap – You know, you know

Text is textile texture textus,

You know all conjugations, the parts and trips of speech,

All fibres of the Book, the stitching and snipping,

All ways a world gets from there to here.

Assemble me kind, assemble me wild,

Read me insane and lovely and never afraid of clash.

Unpick me old, spin me a yarn worthy of queer –

I am story queen, myth mad weirdo;

Like the rabbis say, make me masekhet,

Loom me into Law, woven from readings, discards,

I do not care for making sense, I could be all schmattology;

Construct me dress, show-off, fucking haute couture –

As if I were Scripture, Tanakh

Worthy of that much care,

Construct me weird and kind, leave it to me

To strip off when I’m ready. I shall run wild,

Naked as I dare, out into sober streets.

Eleanor constructs a Father

‘Call no one father on earth, for you have one Father’

Heaven’s a bore. A hallowing on earth, I shall work

Grammar, my will, his hers ours, your will, mine,

Enflesh in mouth till speaking’s bone, blood, pulse;

If only, lip-magic! if only word worked that way for me,

Though if I bear Image too, why not hallowing be mine?