"Pandora" by Rhydian W. Thomas

© Rhydian W. Thomas, 2011. The poem first appeared in Hue & Cry Issue No. 5, and is reproduced with permission of the author.

                                                         Editor: Sarah Jane Barnett

Ever since reading "Pandora" the poem has stayed with me. I thought it would make an interesting Tuesday Poem as it's quite unusual. For me, I can't think of another poem that has managed to create such a feeling of genuine repulsion and disgust.

In "Pandora" my repulsion comes not only from the man who abuses the dog, but from the other man who runs from the scene. The line "as his stonepath ceased to mess itself under me" and its allusion to soiling oneself, seems to capture the speaker's cowardly nature. The poem also works against the traditional lyric form and transformational moment, which I applaud. It certainly made me think about the purpose of poetry, and I still shudder with every reading.

Rhydian Thomas was born in Wales and moved to New Zealand at the age of thirteen. He is a writer and musician based in Wellington, working a range of oddball jobs to support his art-making problem. His poetry has appeared in Sport, Hue & Cry, and Turbine, and he makes music under the name The Body Lyre. He has an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University and he occasionally writes for martial arts website NZFighters.com. He has won a grand total of zero Poetry Awards and zero Scholar Dollars but has been the deserving recipient of several prestigious rejection letters. He is currently working on a novel.




This week's editor Sarah Jane Barnett is a writer and reviewer who lives in Wellington. Her first collection of poems, A Man Runs into a Woman, was published by Hue & Cry Press in 2012. She blogs at theredroom.org.

After you're enjoyed the poem here at the hub, do check out the Tuesday Poets in the sidebar - each has selected a poem by themselves or another poet.