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- Herausgeber: The Poetry Business
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
Part self-portrait, part love affair, the poems in Self-Portrait with The Happiness are obsessed with moments elsewhere. Rural England contends with immense Chinese cities via Thailand and Japan. The effect is a collection which craves the exotic in the everyday: puppeteers communicating through their puppets, sonnets sketched on the snowy rooftops of cars and Chinese dragons flying above the Lakeland fells. David Tait is one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary poetry, and this eagerly awaited collection confirms the promise of his pamphlet, Love's Loose Ends, which won the Poetry Business Competition, judged by Simon Armitage.
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Self-Portrait with The Happiness
David Tait
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the editors of the following journals who kindly published some of these poems: Ambit,The Bastille,The Cadaverine,Eunoia Review,The Interpreter’s House,Magma,The North,Poetry Proper,Poetry Review,The Rialto and Stand.
A selection of these poems were included in the pamphlets Love’s Loose Ends (smith|doorstop) and Suitcase/Earthquake (Erbacce).
‘North York Moor’ was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2011.
The poem ‘Self-Portrait with the Calmness’ was translated into Spanish and thrown out of a helicopter during the Poetry Parnassus ‘Rain of Poems’.
My poem ‘The Lengths’ took its starting point from Carole Bromley’s poem ‘A Candle for Lesley’.
Some of these poems were also published in the following anthologies: Rain of Poems London 2012 (Casagrande), The Sheffield Anthology (smith|doorstop), Versions of the North (Five Leaves Press) and CAST: The Poetry Business Book of New Contemporary Poets (smith|doorstop).
Thanks also to Lin Yusi for letting me use his picture, ‘Dandelion’, for the cover image of this book.
Published 2014 by
smith|doorstop Books
The Poetry Business
Bank Street Arts
32-40 Bank Street
Sheffield S1 2DS
www.poetrybusiness.co.uk
Copyright © David Tait 2014
Digital Edition © 2015
ISBN 978-1-902382-01-2
David Tait hereby asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed by Printondemand.com
Cover image: ‘Dandelion’ © Lin Yusi
Author photo: Aikapat Sittichai
smith|doorstop Books is a member of Inpress,
www.inpressbooks.co.uk. Distributed by Central Books Ltd., 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN.
The Poetry Business is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation
Contents
Puppets
Self-Portrait with The Dead
Elsewhere
The night my grandfather died
The Stars and the Dragon
Northern Lights
Self-Portrait with the Moon
New in Love
Heart
Postbox
Self-Portrait with Headtorch
Of Arrival
Spring Snow
Flowerpots
Self-Portrait with Corridor
North York Moor
Self-Portrait with God
On Being Trapped Inside a Puddle
The Launderette on Autumn Street
Edits
Self-Portrait with The Happiness
Self-Portrait in Tears
Dust
The Crying Men
The Election and the Black Snow
Unforgetting Paris
Self-Portrait with the Sadness
Green Oranges
Death of a Lighthouse
The Peacock in their Shed
The Piano
The Pelicans
The Lengths
The Handover
Českỳ Krumlov
Sonnet in the Snow
Afterthought
Of Departure
Self-Portrait with Overhead Cables
End Credits
“What did you think, that joy was some slight thing?”
– Mark Doty 'Visitation'’
Puppets
The puppets are in love
and so are the puppeteers.
You can spot this easily in puppets,
in the clumsy grace with which
one removes his hat, bows
for the happiness of an audience.
The stitched on smile is no less
sincere: he’s in love with the rag
of a girl dancing to the music box,
twirling as she does each night,
bead eyes reflecting the light
of love. But look more closely
at the puppeteers, for the true art
lies in them: their hand-gestures,
that look that says:
I’m yours if you’ll have me
I’ll take off my hat as you dance
to the music box, I’ll smile
my stupid stitched on smile
as light reflects your dilated eyes.
Love everywhere, and so much of it;
so much you can hardly see the strings.
Self-Portrait with The Dead
A call last night from your country code
while I was lying in bed.
I saw it flash – the screen of the phone
turned blue – though instead
of answering, I let it go on.
The last I’d heard you’d left that place.
The last I’d heard you’d stepped
off a platform in rush-hour Shinjuku
yet here you were: unabashed, brazen: you –
knowing full well I’d be listening,
