In Miss Owen’s English class we learned about The Writer,
a local hero, or at least he’d come from a town near ours
we’d heard of, and had written poems and books, and died
abroad. He wrote a novel famous for being about fucking,
she told us – or something – and for having the word cunt in it,
and getting banned. Her fish-batter hair bounced as much as
hair as short as hers could, and her cavegirl face with its dark,
moon-lidded eyes, ground pepper as she said the swear-words,
and feasted on the bony silence they’d milked. After the bell,
we mooched about in the schoolyard like sheep just shorn,
our tongues and lips clumsy with disbelief, the crown jewels of
our vocabulary now strangely blunted in our mucky little mouths.
Robert Ford lives on the east coast of Scotland. His poetry has appeared in both print and online publications in the UK and US, including Antiphon, Clear Poetry, Homestead Review and Ink, Sweat and Tears. More of his work can be found here
This is so good!
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Love this! “The crown jewels of our vocabulary…” – class! 😊
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I am mooching about at my laptop, a clumsy poet in the presence of this feast.
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Wow! Pure class. Love it.
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Fabulous stuff. 10/10 and a Gold Star!
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Reblogged this on Sarah Russell Poetry and commented:
A marvelous poem by Robert Ford, voted Reader’s Choice at Algebra of Owls. Both the poet and the journal are worth following. I’m never disappointed by their offerings.
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I have long admired the way that Robert writes. His poems never fail to pull me in for a long satisfying drink that I didn’t realize I needed.
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