I am the Universe Writing environmental catastrophe
I am the Universe: Writing environmental catastrophe Winners’ Anthology The Poetry Society 22 Betterton Street London WC2H 9BX www.poetrysociety.org.uk Cover: ‘Mont Blanc, Journey of the Private Moon in the Arctic Magdalena Fjord’ by Leonid Tishkov, 2010 © Leonid Tishkov, 2017 © The Poetry Society & authors, 2017
I am the Universe Writing environmental catastrophe
Acknowledgements The Poetry Society would like to thank: Dr David Higgins and Dr Tess Somervell at the University of Leeds for inviting us to collaborate on this project; Lucy Wood and Phoebe Walker for project development; and the University of Leeds for hosting a live showcase event featuring the poets in this anthology as part of its ‘Mediating Climate Change’ conference in July 2017. Helen Mort for writing and judging the challenge; for her commissioned poem ‘The Library of Ice’; and, with Suzanne Evans, for leading writing workshops in Queen Ethelburga’s College in York and St Aidan’s Church of England School in Harrogate. Leonid Tishkov for the cover image ‘Mont Blanc, Journey of the Private Moon in the Arctic Magdalena Fjord’. The Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this project. Thanks, finally, to the young poets presented here, and all the other young writers who entered this challenge.
Contents Introduction A note from judge Helen Mort A note from Dr David Higgins Helen Mort Abby Meyer James Tierney Natalie Thomas Jamie Hancock Amelie Maurice-Jones Hero Bain Ella Standage Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer Jacob Wright Katherine Liu
The Library of Ice Inverie They Came for the Shale Early April Heatwave My Hurricane demure Eskerdale Green how to be an ocean In Thanks Richness La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Young writers and The Poetry Society Schools and The Poetry Society
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Introduction Welcome to I am the Universe, an anthology of winning poems written in response to climate change. In 2017, The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network invited young writers to write poems on this theme, inspired by British Romantic poetry and contemporary landscape photography, as part of a collaboration with the University of Leeds. Poet and adventurer Helen Mort set the challenge and hundreds of writers under the age of 25 from across the globe wrote new poems in response. This anthology presents the ten poems Helen selected as winners, alongside her own commissioned piece about the changing face of our planet, ‘The Library of Ice’. Young Poets Network is a key part of The Poetry Society’s mission to support young poets and poetry-lovers. If you’re inspired by the poems presented here, visit our online platform at youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk to read the resources and writing prompts Helen produced for this project, and to discover further poems, articles, and new writing challenges. The Poetry Society
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A note from judge Helen Mort In August 2016, I stepped out of my tent and looked up at the imposing calving face of the Knud Rasmussen glacier in East Greenland. I’d been awake most of the night, listening to ice crashing into the fjord, the sound like cannon-fire. I was part-way through a mountaineering trip and I was preoccupied, troubled by the question of how I might represent a changing landscape through my writing. This sense of unease stayed with me long after I returned to the UK and hung up my crampons. It hardly needs saying that climate change is a difficult, daunting topic to respond to. Writers risk sounding like preaching pessimists or naïve optimists. Through writing the I am the Universe challenge for the University of Leeds and Young Poets Network, I was able to step back and take a more objective look, considering how Romantic poets and contemporary artists have represented the natural world and our impact on it. The poems that young writers produced in response to the challenge I set them broadened my perspective even further. I was humbled and inspired by the range of poems, how each of them took a slant look at shifting landscapes, how they made the issues relevant to their own lives. In turn, these young writers helped me find the words to express my own thoughts about ice, influenced too by a photograph called
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‘The Cold Library of Ice’ by David Buckland. I hope you enjoy reading the young writers’ poems that follow as much as I did. Helen Mort
A note from Dr David Higgins I am the Universe arose from a research project I’ve been leading at the University of Leeds on environmental catastrophe in British Romantic writing. Romanticism is often associated with a straightforward celebration of nature; this project explores how Romantic authors were also troubled by its catastrophic power. Climate change is a key theme: my research has focused particularly on the climate crisis caused by the cooling effects of the 1815 eruption of the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora. I firmly believe that a historicised understanding of climate change is vital as we face environmental challenges, and I am delighted by how the winning poems speak to the project’s concerns, in particular the agency of nonhuman nature. Dr David Higgins University of Leeds
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Helen Mort The Library of Ice after David Buckland’s ‘The Cold Library of Ice’ In the library of ice, the shelves were bridal-white, crevassed, unreachable. I watched the fjord, how gently it could carry off a single page of cold, then volumes, sections, half the world. The sky was a bored librarian in cloudless blue, the calving face an index I could never read. No list, no human names, no litany of winters unreturned. I looked for a language I could know like music, and the library offered up the sound of shifting boulders, the glacier’s shoulders lifting them, too slow to hear. I looked for a language I could know like braille
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and my fingers froze against each sign I touched. I looked for a language I could know like colour, saw the near-transparency of air around a flame. In the library of ice, I knew that I was smaller than a book. The years dripped into centuries. I stood and waited to be classified as if the glacier would pick me up and stamp my bones with frost then let the absent evening come, the high sun borrow me.
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FIRST PRIZE
Abby Meyer Inverie for Darla We feel we have caught this day like this seagull with a whelk in his mouth. Hills smoke by the sea, and they burn the heather to shoot the grouse And the smoke burns with a certain haze. The mist and the memories of separate camping trips flood onto the horizon. We are drenched. We are not sure if the boat will return to take us back to reality. I wonder if when I think back
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to the sound of rain on hoods I will only picture my childhood Or you in your yellow fisherman coat, dancing with no music.
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SECOND PRIZE
James Tierney They Came for the Shale The sparrow your dad loves to watch pick seeds from the bottom of the garden is getting too hot to fly. It’s pecking at its own feathers in some attempt at relief. Your bank holiday seems to disappear while through the kitchen window bore holes deep into your countryside view.
great machines
He brought you up on the line Nothing lasts forever but you’ve had that plastic giraffe on your windowsill for twenty-three years and it’s still as good as new.
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THIRD PRIZE
Natalie Thomas Early April Heatwave They’re twisting the swings in the park next door, metal coils against wood, the ache echoes in the dry air. It sounds like deep August, everyone outside in the sun. We take a drive towards leafless woodland, picnic in the boot, windows down, radio on. Sunlight spills through stripped, craggy branches. Has it ever been this hot in April? Cross-legged on the gingham rug, sucking slices of cucumber. Our eating is dazzling. But the trees – they are grey little chicken bones, the waste of last night’s winter. You pour out the Pimms, slosh in strawberries and god have you ever seen such big British strawberries? And so early? They’re wet and fresh but the trees – the trees, I can’t stop looking at the trees.
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COMMENDED
Jamie Hancock My Hurricane I have a hurricane inside my ear. I don’t know how, But now, each night as I go to sleep, It roars its way around my head. At first, I asked if others could hear it too – None of them knew what I was talking about Until I opened up my mouth and let The sound slip out. They were amazed And crowded in to hear it once again, Though when I tried, nothing more came. On some days, it feels like a wounded animal And all I want to do is cup it in my hands To show it that nothing will go wrong. On others, though, it finds its way into My roots, shearing and pulling. It takes My valence and sends the earth into the air. So now I sit here, listening to it turn And sing and surge its way around, Waiting for the hour when its eye comes.
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COMMENDED
Amelie Maurice-Jones demure blackbird nest: bruised honey holds all eggs which unhalf in hollowhold when no men ferret for thrills and this is Tuesday, now nobody is watching sheds a skin. every tree shuddering off rust in the shops which shut coloured shutters. the day hides behind foggy eyelashes, i backtrack the road and step around the meek and tired moss, which tries to crack the quiet of a shy river. our warm moon, the closest thing to a king, cradled in shamrock.
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horns and the angry train fix, iron, even. and crow caw all eclipsed in the claptrap of a single wing.
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COMMENDED
Hero Bain Eskerdale Green I thought rain was only this blue in picture books. Out there the mountains are a rough sea rolling, Breaking over each other, Tossing the light of a distant house between them. The road is chalked-marked, the day seems to linger. A tree sticks out like a sooty spider web, Hedgerows become charcoal lines on green sugar paper, Tufts of weed are smudgy finger marks. The trees in a nearby wood rise and fall And climb like the silhouette of a city, here a castle there a church. The evening wears a gown of indigo velvet, A solitary car tinkles briefly in the distance.
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COMMENDED
Ella Standage how to be an ocean 1. begin as the laughter of stars. as ice. waltz lazy orbits around the rock with no name and watch, and watch. here; a planet is being born. a heartbeat starts – hydrogen gasps – you melt. 2. becoming water is like the pitch of your voice changing overnight. an ache when you say your old name out loud. your songs are different now: muffled from the sea-floor, and when the moon calls, you learn the steps of the dance. 3. the moon winks flirtations / and you reflect them back. the moon whispers in abalone / and you reply in chalky white. at night she tugs at you, rumpling the tides like sheets and curling into a blurry crescent until your waves soften. 4. and one day a voice says wódr or ὕδωρ or aqua or water: which means being a horizon dreamt in blue, which means crests of wave reaching for the moon, storm and still and anything inbetween, because sea-slosh sounds the same to every ear. 5. a girl stands on the ocean and does not drown. you draw the shape of her name in coastlines, give her shells and seasalt. she will ask you how to be an ocean / and as the tide comes in you will laugh and say my first breath was a flood.
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COMMENDED
Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer In Thanks All along the riverbanks trees are citrine, amber, coral, ruby, in thanks for the chance to green again. Colour contours contrast across each leaf; words like Birch and Oak emerge, budding up in throats of passersby recalling why they talk of trees not tree. But the river, mischievous as ever, speaks in diamond tones below of a mistiness between orange, brown, red, green, where trees, where leaves are many words just falling from a single mouth. The river licks them home.
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COMMENDED
Jacob Wright Richness I keep sunlight in a match box. I slide it open – the clouds blush. Bulbs tucked deep from cold sky hum with possibility. It’s warmth like bath water, like pressing bodies. I squint, chandeliers of light on concrete. Tilt my chin. I’m like butter and its richness lingering past the meal.
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COMMENDED
Katherine Liu La Fortuna, Costa Rica Blue noise. Hard sun. Summer plays its heat across my back as La Fortuna crashes, cold water misting into light while tourists test limbs wet from skimming dew, droplets, worn pebbles rolling beneath their heels. Vines rustle, drag the distance, and stray rivulets cascade too. Another couple slips into the pool – this roaring as they laugh. Somewhere, a pebble plunges and inverts under the trembling of feet. But I am not naked here. I am not skinless nor browned by sun. In this version of the present I am simply sitting. The water still falls while bodies continue to edge beneath the mouth, their arms raised in invitation – for this present rolls, all-encompassing, consuming every version of the world. The water falls interminably. It bubbles, calls – and yet. Something inverts. Some tourists pick themselves out of surf 20
to cross other rocks, warm slap of sunscreen beside the aged hint or embrace of sea. Their bodies pale like blindness under the sun. They will never be any younger than this, clambering over rocks into colder versions of themselves, starved for joy they slip through, for time, for this water they were never given to keep.
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Winners Abby Meyer, 19, Bedfordshire James Tierney, 23, Liverpool Natalie Thomas, 22, London Jamie Hancock, 19, Hampshire Amelie Maurice-Jones, 17, West Sussex Hero Bain, 18, Norwich Ella Standage, 17, London Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer, 23, Durham Jacob Wright, 23, Nottingham Katherine Liu, 18, Illinois, USA
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield. Her first collection Division Street won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize, and her second collection No Map Could Show Them is a PBS recommendation. She is a five-time winner of The Poetry Society’s Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award.
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Young writers and The Poetry Society Young Poets Network is The Poetry Society’s online platform for young poets up to the age of 25. It’s for everyone interested in poets and poetry – whether you’ve just started out, or you’re a seasoned reader and writer. You’ll find features, challenges and competitions to inspire your own writing, as well as new writing from young poets, and advice and guidance from the rising and established stars of the poetry scene. For updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @youngpoetsnet youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is the largest free international poetry competition for 11-17 year olds, with entries from thousands of young people worldwide. Each year 100 winners (85 Commendations and 15 Overall Winners) are selected by high-profile judges to win publication, tuition, and poetry goodies. Past winners include Helen Mort, Ella Standage, and Abby Meyer – all of whom appear in this anthology. The Award closes 31 July every year, and is open to poems on all themes. With no entry fee, and no limit on number of poems, it’s a fantastic opportunity for any writer aged 11-17. foyleyoungpoets.org
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SLAMbassadors is the national youth slam championship, open to young people aged 12-18. The slam is open every year to any young person in the country, and aims to uncover the next generation of MCs, rappers, performance poets and spoken word artists. To enter the slam simply film yourself performing your piece and submit it online. Six acts will be chosen from across the UK to take part in an intensive, two-day masterclass with the spoken word artist Joelle Taylor. The winners’ work will be showcased at a live performance at a prestigious London venue alongside Joelle and a headline spoken word act. Recent judges and headliners include Kate Tempest, Hollie McNish and Scroobius Pip. SLAMbassadors workshops are also available for schools and youth groups. Previous winners include Anthony Anaxagorou, Megan Beech, Kayo Chingonyi, Aisling Fahey, Tommy Sissons, Vanessa Kisuule and NAGA MC. slam.poetrysociety.org.uk
SLAMbassadors Showcase, London, 2016. Photo: Christa Holka for The Poetry Society.
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Schools and The Poetry Society Teaching resources, including free lesson plans, are available from resources.poetrysociety.org.uk Page Fright is an online resource bringing canonical poetry to life with contemporary spoken word performances. There are also ideas and writing prompts to inspire new writing. resources.poetrysociety.org.uk/Page-Fright Poets in Schools is a service placing poets in classrooms across the UK, encouraging an understanding of and enthusiasm for written and spoken poetry across all key stages. Whether it’s a one-off workshop or a long term residency, an INSET session for staff or a poet-led assembly, we can find the right poet for your school. poetrysociety.org.uk/education School Membership connects your school with all that The Poetry Society has to offer. School members receive books, resources, posters, free access to our Poets in Schools service, and more. poetrysociety.org.uk/membership
The Poetry Society in school. Photo: Hayley Madden for The Poetry Society.
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