The Elephant Tests E-Book

Matt Merritt

• Herausgeber: Nine Arches Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 42

Beschreibung

The Elephant Tests, the third collection of poems from Matt Merritt, takes sheer delight in the full possibilities of language in this study of birds and natural history, travel, personal and universal memory, and even of the occasional elephant too. In the process, it captures the quiet wonder of the fleeting moments that amaze, puzzle and trouble us. Eco-poetry and exploration are met perfectly with myths and epiphanies; the wide, wild world outside is precisely spoken for, just a moment before taking flight or merging into dusk. This is poetry unafraid of new territories; Matt Merritt pushes out the boundaries of each poem without ever once losing the humour, grace and gentle melancholy at their heart. "A poet's talent follows no maps. Insight, rueful humour and a perfectly tuned ear make Matt Merritt's The Elephant Tests an exceptional collection, whose poems absorb and startle. Here are elephants, benign or brooding, hares, 'sharp against the last sun', humans, who 'lie and wait for the ceiling rose to bloom', birds, imagined and real: 'Rain bird (see also yarrow, yappingale, yaffle)'. Each poem reveals its own richness: 'and the last thing you see / will be the last thing you ever expected.'" Alison Brackenbury "I've become a pretty ardent Matt Merritt fan in recent years. A more observant and articulate poet is hard to imagine. The Elephant Tests is at least as strong as its two predecessors, whilst also being thematically and stylistically his most ambitious and varied book to date." Rory Waterman "The Elephant Tests shows a fully mature poet who continues to explore the relationship between verse and his life. Merritt accompanies us on a poetic journey that forces us to reflect on ever-growing uncertainties." Matthew Stewart, Rogue Strands "There's a great variety of tone and style here, though; much wider than is sometimes found in smaller press publications, more than I have room to discuss here – a couple of the Elephant poems, for example, which drew me to this collection, are great fun whilst also using the metaphor to discuss worth and memory. These are poems of acute observation that enjoy playing with language, both sound and meaning, and I very much enjoyed reading them." Rosemary Badcoe, Antiphon Matt Merritt is a poet and wildlife journalist. His previous collections are hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica (Nine Arches, 2010), Troy Town (2008) and the pamphlet Making The Most Of The Light (2005). He reviews poetry for Magma, New Walk, Under the Radar and Sphinx, and is co-editor of Poets on Fire. He lives near Leicester.

Leseprobe

The Elephant Tests

The Elephant Tests

Matt Merritt

ISBN: 978-0-9573847-4-3

Copyright © Matt Merritt, 2013

Cover photograph © Eleanor Bennett

www.eleanorleonnebennett.zenfolio.com

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Matt Merritt has asserted his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published July 2013 by:

Nine Arches Press

Unit 14, Sir Frank Whittle Business Centre,

Great Central Way, Rugby.

CV21 3XH

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed in Britain by:

imprintdigital.net

Seychelles Farm,

Upton Pyne,

Exeter

EX5 5HY

www.imprintdigital.net

Matt Merritt was born in Leicester in 1969, and lives in Whitwick. His debut chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light, was published by Happenstance in 2005, and full collections have been Troy Town (Arrowhead, 2008) and hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica (Nine Arches Press, 2010). He reviews for Magma, New Walk, Under the Radar and Sphinx. He studied history at Newcastle University, and works as the editor of Bird Watching magazine. He is the editor of Poets On Fire, and blogs at polyolbion.blogspot.com

CONTENTS

Ganesha

Sundays in May

Magnetite

Birds We Didn’t See

Desire Lines

Svalbard

The elephant in the room

Fragment

Six Ways To Navigate The City

Patsy Parisi’s Blues

Azul

Long Story Short

Cloud Forest

The Mind’s Skyline

Watching Woodcocks, 25.4.10

Squacco Heron, Attenborough

Black-throated Diver, Lochindorb

The Capercaillie

Tortoise

Six Poets Consider A Blind Elephant In Cairo

Petrichor

A Long Dry

Smoke

Of the night

Red Centre Blues

West Sussex Interlude

The fourteenth of February,

Metamorphoses

Small Girl, Big Horse

Ravens, Newborough Warren

News

The Dark Ages

A Long Exposure

In Camera

Once and future kings

Three Days On Stanage

Starlings

Second Marriage

Genesis

Brimstone

Patsy Parisi’s Blues (Slight Return)

Elephant Tests

Nine Ways To Stay Lost

Birds Encountered Repeatedly

Always

Butterflies

Greenshanks At Montijo

Chirimoya

At Frampton Marsh

Prayer

Ground-truthers

How To Begin

Seeing The Elephant

Notes

Acknowledgements

GANESHA

He’s gazed at the fanlight since the day

I took possession, god of the mantelpiece

and cold open grate. One fixed point

in an ever-changing pantheon

of ballots and bills, letters expecting no reply,

clusters of keepsakes long since shucked

of their carapace of context and meaning.

His trunk snakes left to take a proffered sweetmeat

(we’re united in disdain for the virtues of self-denial).

Unwitting recipient of every prayer for easy living,

I catch him, aloof and golden in the sunrise.

Later, by lamplight, he dances alone

in the shadows of possibility to the tune

of his thousand names, each one an increment

between vighnakartã and vighnahartã,

creator and remover of every obstacle.

He greets each suspiciously-familiar tomorrow

with the same open hand,

ready to welcome good fortune

when it finds its way up the garden path

and swings the old door wide on slow hinges.

SUNDAYSIN MAY

Something should be starting. While you breakfast

slowly on the leavings of the week, watching

fledglings scream their demands across the lawn,

the seeds of an idea should be reaching

for the surface. Watching trees making free

with their confetti, your heart should be surrendering

to the unlearned salmon-leaps of love. You should

be seeing clouds not as rain but as the opening

of a wide, white country before astonished eyes.

Your song should be earning the blackbird’s praise.

Walking that avenue into town, passing students

dragging bags to the laundry, revision notes tucked

inside the NME, you should be moving

towards something that has waited for you

all your life. If it is to happen,

here among the ice-cream vans,

the two-for-ones and the pavement tables,

it’s as well that it would happen soon.

MAGNETITE

We are not so much of the earth, even,

as the most microscopic jewel-toothed chiton,

the single-minded sperm whale, the Atlantic salmon.

Even the birds. Especially the birds.

They are tethered by the same element

that silvers the backs of their eyes, lodestones that stud

their skulls, or spines, while we wander song-lines, desire-lines,

remake maps, charts, the base metal of our words.

BIRDS WE DIDN’T SEE

Newleafturner

Immaculate Start

Habitual Honeyeater

Extravagant Lark

Infallible Liecatcher

Spangled Coquette

Laughing Umbrellabird

Sunbitten Sunbittern

Variegated Brilliant

Euphoric Euphonia

Indefinite Stint

Incandescent Sunangel

Paradise Kite

DESIRE LINES

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Drought or drench draw them more clearly,

teach the secret geometry of hidden

or half-arsed purpose. For each

ribbon of rained-on intent,

tramped-down meander of resolve

that hardens into lane or jitty,

or even city street, another ten

remain as freehand scrawls, scribbles

at best, the chords and tangents

of long-forgotten arcs. A season’s growth

softens edges, a work-crew and a one-off budget

tame the snake in the grass, or divide head

from tail, but a few days of scorching sun,

a week of winter, can reunite both

or sharpen the top-down perspective,

until each waste-ground’s a history