In Orbit E-Book

Glyn Edwards

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

Seitenzahl: 53

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

On receiving news of a beloved teacher's death, a man struggles with the loss of a relationship sustained by deep admiration. Memories of their shared trajectory are separated in three orbits where the man's past, present, and future seem to be punctuated by the same intense grief. Narrated by the man through his grieving process, In Orbit uses a variety of innovative forms to explore loss, from traditional stanzas to prose poems to shaped poems in the form of birds, circuits, or hands. The narrative shifts in time, moving from his teen years to the present day when he himself has become a teacher. Observations from the classroom as student and teacher illuminate the deep and compassionate work that educators can do, as well as the moving nature of student-teacher relationships. This book does not ignore that teaching is hard work, and in grieving over the death of his own mentor, the narrator finds himself rudderless.The book not only grieves the loss of the teacher, but also toxic standards for boys and men. In Orbit demands that young people to be given space to explore their feelings without judgement, to be free to love others, and to love themselves. Beyond human communities, however, sustenance is found in the moon, the stars, the sky, and nature. The discovery of a badger's track or the treasure of a bird egg reminds us how small our trajectories are in the context of the more-than-human: an answer perhaps to the grieving process.Ultimately, Glyn Edwards' collection is a deeply moving account of losing a person you love, but not shying away from remembering them. In Orbit is a sustained narrative of love, loss, and longing. 'These poems let me see the subject matter in an almost photographic way and they marry that descriptive brilliance with depth of perception. Here there is something worth seeing and something worth grasping.' - Angela Graham 'Glyn Edwards is a true original who is not swamped or drowned out by channelling his predecessors from Shakespeare to Ted Hughes and beyond. He brings his own sharp observation, deep feeling and gift for language to the mix and makes everything his own.  The poems of the natural world are breathtakingly vivid and the reader becomes gifted with the poet's ability to see with exceptional clarity and steadiness.'  – John Freeman 'Edwards is a pilgrim, treading in others' footsteps, yet carving new paths in the poetic landscape. These journeys of homage are couched in rich, resonant language.'-Kathy Miles 'I am struck by the intensity and vitality of language, how landscapes green into being, how words are like lines of the body. - K.S. Moore 'Death is the ironic constant of life in these poems, often pondered over as both unnatural in its stark resolution and natural in its place as the final moment of all of our lived experiences.' - Alex Hubbard

Leseprobe

In Orbit

For Nic and Arthur, always

In Orbit Glyn Edwards

Seren is the book imprint of Poetry Wales Press Ltd. Suite 6, 4 Derwen Road, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 1LH www.serenbooks.comfacebook.com/SerenBookstwitter@SerenBooks The right of Glyn Edwards to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. © Glyn Edwards, 2023. ISBN: 978-1-78172-694-5 ebook: 978-1-78172-695-2 A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library. The poems in this book are creative works by Glyn Edwards, not a non-fiction account. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder. The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Books Council of Wales. Cover artwork: ‘Disegni della Luna, novembre-dicembre 1609’ by Galileo Galilei, from the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, by kind permission of the Italian Ministry of Culture Printed in Bembo by Severn, Gloucester.

Contents Oneelegy11 She rang to say you’d collapsed12 a single atom in an ion trap13 Antipodes14 Daylight Saving15 Tombolo18 Cofiwch Dryweryn19 there is no excuse20 wish fulfilment as montage21 just as23 The Moon as a Drone24 river25 A photocopy sellotaped to a desk - Picking Flowers byHenri Lebasque26 The day had turned a hard dark27 TwoThere’s no king of Bardsey Island anymore31 Instead, I would look at Venus through my telescope32 Parallel Circuit33 Moon phases as seen from Earth34 I put on my shirt, my tie35 Sun, Earth and Moon scale model (Oxford NaturalHistory Museum)37 Aesop’s Crow38 ‘nocturnal’39 Hunter’s Moon40 Smoots or41 Paternity Leave42 Stargazing43 Blackbird44 The bells in their gables were stilled45 ThreeThe headmistress’ PA49 A photo of the moon shows not a moon but a moon beinglooked at50 Orange Death Sparkle Dun51

おもひでぽろぽろ (Only Yesterday) 52 Imitation53 If God is a black hole54 Bird Drawings by CF Tunnicliffe55 Re: Phased Return56 Dandelion58 [O TRESPASSIN]59 smile61 If one day you woke up and the Eiffel Tower was gone62 In between sleep63 dark matter64 Afterword67 Notes68 Acknowledgements70

Remember, you cannot look at the sun or death for very long – David Hockney

One

11 elegybefore beginning please understand there’s no end here in dark is dark in night is night in grief is grief elegy is a book the last page wrested or left unwritten all anyone can seek to know is the time to turn and come back alone

12 She rang to say you’d collapsedthe night before at the snooker club in the village. I was marking exam papers on the sofa. The ambulance had been delayed, she said.You’d died on the way to the hospital, she said. Technically, or officially was the word she’d used – I can’t recall which. I had started thinking of the balls left rolling on the table. And you, down on the floor, oblivious. The fire exit doors were jammed. The paramedics struggled to get the stretcher out properly, she said. I saw your lean breath leave your mouth, charging the cold car park air. Your chest trembling like barbed wire in scant breeze. I looked away from the thought of you blue-lipped and half- dressed and dead as winter. The family had followed the ambulance and had all waited outside the operating theatre. I imagined them ricocheting about the dimmed corridors, staring back at themselves in the midnight windows. They were all so unlucky, she said. While she was quiet, I thought but did not say that most meteors heading for Earth burn up on entry to the atmosphere, where their threat shrinks to a distant streak of starlight, as sharp but as brief as a scratch from a cat. The comets we dread worse than cancer are the size of kidney stones when they’re collected in the Outback, or the Steppe. I wanted to reassure her how close we come to our ending every day, every night. I could do nothing but imagine the snooker balls, all asteroids on a chart, following their infinite trajectories. She began to cry. And then so did I. Then she stopped and I couldn’t.

13 a single atom in an ion trapheadline a clipped page left on a staffroom table above a photograph of a pale blue dot trapped between electrodes barley two millimetres apart suspended in an electric field in a quiet Oxford laboratory to create a direct and visceral between the quantum world and macroscopic reality in the frame of a digital camera held at a vacuum chamber window as blue-violet lasers illuminate a strontium atom absorbing and emitting their pale light becoming visible to the eye for weeks after they buried you I picked blueschist off my shoes rubbed it away from my fingers never saw you crossing the yard heard coughing from your room noticed names change on doors on the front of children’s books never thought death could be a to any creation as divine as here of that on a shelf quarried into some silent strip of our universe your omnipotence could form again and find a way to share a space with someone always alone in an empty staffroom finding blue flecks on floor tiles sitting beside your empty seat bridge

14 AntipodesWe are waiting in your shrunken classroom, warming our wet shoes on the growling pipes below the windowsill, drawing cocks in the condensation until you come in, later than usual, shake yourself dry like a damp dog and stare at a computer screen. Did you hear about the earthquake, Sir? You nod, though your eyes don’t nod. The tremors, says a voice, desperate to rescue you, set off car alarms in London – the other side of the world.You are silent, so close now to the monitor that when you stir it’s as if you’re butting your forehead against the glass.