Christmas i could slide easing
down your chimney be your pleasant
present dropping on your hearth gift-
wrapped to your order in my sad sack and
ashes and You'd only think You'd
barely got your own back
i could crouch in my box You'd
scratch at my windows and i'd close
the curtains i'd phone out for life
and You'd come as
the van-man plumbers gasman police
ambulance all badges and your fists
and if the door didn't
open You'd be sure
i still wasn't small enough
Well I could ride a new broom
through the night streets
mash a toad in your mailbox
put a pox on your willy
take a hard fingernail and carve
on your door Mind
your own
bloody
business
and cutting me down
and boxing me in
and cutting me up
would still be your business
from Aileen Kelly, The Passion Paintings, Poems 1983 - 2006, John Leonard Press, 2006.
Editor: Catherine Bateson
Aileen Kelly was born in England and graduated from Cambridge. She has lived in Melbourne since 1962 where she has worked as an adult educator. Her first collection, Coming Up for Light, 1994, won the Mary Gilmore Award for best Australian first book of poetry and was shortlisted for both the Anne Elder and Victorian Premier's awards.
I've posted about Aileen Kelly's work and my personal and professional friendship with Aileen before on my own blog, so I won't repeat what I wrote there. I do want to say that I believe Aileen Kelly to be an excellent poet whose work has sadly been under-valued in Australia. I have some theories about this, but I'm more interested in hearing what people think of this poem.
What I love: the rhythms of the poem which create the dialogue between the speaker and the silent 'You', the ambiguity of the 'You' to whom the poem is addressed, the pungent vernacular and the tension this creates with the poem's content. There's nothing predictable about this poem. Over to you - what do you think?
This week's editor Catherine Bateson is a poet and children's writer who lives in the hills outside Melbourne. You can find more information about her on her webpage.
For more Tuesday Poems, please follow the links in the side-bar to the right of this page.
10 comments:
I respond to the energy of the poem. I feel a burning anger. The anger is controlled in the poem. There's a sense of invasion: I'm reminded of a saying I heard once "all men are space invaders." This is how I read the poem.
I do like the poem. I now see an element of domestic violence. I can see how hostile and abusive the man is and how it is so far for the persona to feel safe.
I'm sorry, I meant to type 'hard' instead of 'far'!
Thanks for your comments Harvey - yes anger - and a sense of hopelessness But that's mitigated somewhat by the energy of the language, I think. Or do I just hope this?
Thanks for posting this - I love the way she uses line endings in the poem - it adds to the energy and the dynamic force of it.
Hi Kathleen - yes, I totally agree. I remember how spot on Aileen's comments on line endings always were in the workshop we were in together. For years, too, she ran a workshop group which met once a week to actually look at poems by other people and the participants would examine poems by a diverse range of poets, including quite a few Irish poets - Aileen is quite widely published in Ireland. Unfortunately, due to Aileen's ill health, that workshop has ceased. I know the participants will be missing it - it was such a wonderful thing to have one afternoon just devoted to reading, thinking and talking about poetry.
it does seem to be a blaze of anger - like the capital Y for you - like the way it bequeaths
it does seem to be a blaze of anger - like the capital Y for you - like the way it bequeaths
it does seem to be a blaze of anger - like the capital Y for you - like the way it bequeaths
i very much like poem's
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