Ugly Bird E-Book

Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith

• Herausgeber: The Poetry Business
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 17

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Ugly Bird is bolshy and funny and unapologetic. With subjects ranging from public nudity and polyamorous dunnocks to women who run with wolves, these tender poems appreciate human relationships and the natural world, without shying away from difficult conversations around toxic masculinity and mental health. Ugly Bird is tough enough to stand its ground and look you in the eye: 'I'm not perfect, and in no way do I want to be.'

Leseprobe

Published 2021 by

New Poets List

The Poetry Business

Campo House,

54 Campo Lane,

Sheffield S1 2EG

Copyright © Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith 2021

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-912196-58-6

eBook ISBN 978-1-912196-59-3

Typeset by The Poetry Business

Printed by Biddles, Sheffield

Smith|Doorstop Books are a member of Inpress:

www.inpressbooks.co.uk

Distributed by NBN International, 1 Deltic Avenue,

Rooksley, Milton Keynes MK13 8LD

The Poetry Business gratefully acknowledges the support of Arts Council England.

Contents

I Want to Stand Naked in the School Hall

Cappuccinos

Dunnock

Mourning

Ruben’s Grin

Painting People

Meritocracy

It’s Okay to Break

No One Knows Care as Much as Her Hands Do

Gifts from the Woods

The Moon Stripping

Cat

Little Boy on the Train

Reading us The Hobbit

Dad

On Human Touch

Seagull

I’ve Seen It All

I Want to Stand Naked in the School Hall

on the podium, mid assembly,

so my presence will be so overbearing no one can look away.

I want their eyes to burn into my skin, examine

its ripples and folds and the scar that digs it up

like a trench in Ypres.

I’d watch a few hundred jaws slowly unhinge,

drop down into a mass of O’s, all directed

at my body, lopsided like the projector, its florescent beams

bouncing on my raw flesh so each goosebump

would have its own time in the spotlight.

I want to raise my arms, outstretch my fingertips,

so everyone can see my hairy armpits and wonky tits,

my nipples erect with the cold of a hundred stark looks,

so they’d know, so they’d see, I’m not perfect

and in no way do I want to be. Then,

when I’ve got their attention, I want to read them a poem

through the headteacher’s microphone, full blast

so that each naked syllable in each naked word,

spat from my naked throat, would near burst their eardrums,

before they stood, frozen and agape, then filed out.

Cappuccinos

We don’t talk about the night I howled