Forestry – Ruth Irwin

Forestry
Ruth Irwin

The great redwoods of my childhood
Are rotten. Their ignorant branches
Crashed like drunk-driven cars,
Creaking to ignominious death down
Wound country lanes, felled by
Mere weary worthlessness.

Stringy saplings now are left exposed to
Frost, to time and mundane
Personal infamy.

When does pruning become self-persecution?

Perhaps this pain is better. Knowledge, even
Of inadequacy, must surely trump the
Deadened center of an old deluded soul.

To weep for what you’ll never be beats
Not needing it at all.

__________________________________________

Ruth Irwin is a London-based poet currently studying History and English at Queen Mary University. Her poetry has appeared in MAP poetry magazine and Spilt inc.

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Interview: Gabriel Moreno

Nick Murray talks to Gabriel Moreno about his latest event, The Descent and Rise of Orpheus the Bard, and his upcoming poetry collection, The Hollow Tortoise.

Snippets of Et Al. – 7th June

 Two weeks ago, we had a little spoken word night. If you came along, you’ll remember just how arresting our performers were. If not, we’ve decided to let you in on a little of what went on. After the jump you can hear one snippet from each of the spoken word performers from Annexe Presents… Et Al. (7th June). Enjoy!

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Review: Mapping Poetry at The Jolly Cricketers

Melanie Gow reviews Mapping Poetry, the latest poetry event from Fast Culture and Claire Trévien.

I spent a gorgeous, gentle evening indulging in a dissimilitude of rhythmical words that wandered a room touching the oddments with a recognition odd things share.

Prose Poetry Vs Poetic Prose

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Lately I’ve been thinking about prose poetry. It seems to me that, as a poetic form, it’s characterised by its lack of rules, which makes it both a wonderful and difficult thing to approach as a poet; wonderful because with such an absence of parameters it’s free to be explored without limit, but difficult for precisely the same reason – boundaries can be reassuring guidelines at times, and a navigating a place without them can be a daunting prospect.

Adventures in Form – A Review

Adventures in Form, ed. Tom Chivers
reviewed by Hannah Rosefield

‘I hear ghostly Academics in Limbo screeching about form,’ wrote Allen Ginsberg in his notes to the 1959 audio recording of Howl. Lest we doubt that this is a bad thing, he follows up with ‘A word on the Academies: poetry has been attacked by an ignorant & frightened bunch of bores who don’t understand how it’s made… [and] wouldn’t know Poetry if it came up and buggered them in broad daylight.’

Ginsberg is not alone: many readers and writers of the past hundred years have regarded poetic form as the preserve of academics whose obsession with counting iambs and spotting spondees acts as a barrier to understanding. Adventures in Form: A Compendium of Poetic Forms, Rules and Constraints, beautifully produced by independent publishing house Penned in the Margins, is determined to prove form’s naysayers wrong. Featuring established (and establishment) names such as Ruth Padel and Paul Muldoon, as well as younger, lesser-known poets, it is a splendid demonstration of how the prioritization of form can provide a freedom absent from free verse.

A Pigeon, A Kitchen & An Annexe: Sites of Alternative Publishing – Opening Night

Our exhibition with Pigeon, Very Small Kitchen and Ladies of the Press* opened last Friday to a massive crowd. We couldn’t have hoped for a better turn-out.
A huge thanks to everyone who came along, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ve still got until March 4th. We’re also having an evening of talks on the nature of alternative and independent publishing on the 3rd at X Marks the Bökship.

And now, a few snaps from opening night:

Two Poems: Anya Pearson

For 2012’s first edition of Two Poems, we bring you Anya Pearson. A co-founder of the poetry publication, Inc. Magazine, and a brilliant poet and writer, Anya is reshaping London’s literary scene. Today she reads one of her own poems and one by Felix Hodcroft.

Two Poems: Natasha Moskovici

With a presence that fills the room and an effortlessly silken voice, Natasha Moskovici is perfect as a performance poet. Lucky then that she is exactly that. Shaping words to create pieces of joy, despair, confidence and doubt, Moskovici tells us stories we have never heard, but somehow already know. Human experience transformed into beautifully metered fiction.
Today she performs two works for Annexe. The first is her poem, Dylan. The second is Wild Geese, a poem by Mary Oliver.