The following is the first poem from new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, first woman in the position since its inception in 1599! And it's timely, passionate, ballsy (I hate that word but my version, cunty, has so far failed to catch on). It's called, simply, Politics:
How it makes of your face a stone
that aches to weep, of your heart a fist,
clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue
an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand
a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh
a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs
hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice
that can throw no six. How it takes the breath
away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin,
makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static,
of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this –
politics – to your education education education; shouts this –
Politics! – to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your
conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS.
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2 comments:
I borrowed a book of her poems from the library but didn't like them. In it, there was nothing like this. Straight to the guts! Kapow!
I know, right? It's the strongest example of poetry as a force of power that I have ever read in my lifetime. And so brave and deliciously unfeminine of her to produce it as her first work as a laureate. Her predecessor wrote his first poem to commemorate the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie, a far more traditional topic.
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