ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Alex Howard is an author and tutor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. His first book Library Cat (Black & White Publishing) arose out of a viral Facebook weblog, and has since gone on to sell rights to, Korea (Woongjin), France (Bragelonne) and Italy (Garzanti), where it is an Elefanti Bestseller. In 2017, it earned him the Beryl Bainbridge Award at the People’s Book Prize.
Alex’s fiction and poetry has appeared widely in journals such as The London Magazine, Aesthetica and Gutter. It has also earned him shortlistings for the Melita Hume Prize, the Jane Martin Prize and a winning place in the Charles Causley International Poetry Prize, judged by Sir Andrew Motion. He has been invited to perform his work at multiple events and festivals, including Rally & Broad, the Hidden Door Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Alex also holds a PhD on Philip Larkin’s poetics of place, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He reads for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and is currently working on a new YA novel.
Also by Alex Howard:
Library Cat
Shape-Shift
Uncle
I remember you most on this walk:
the three-miler, where the creek winds upriver
and the lapwings warble
under the zinc-enamelled sky.
That barge we liked is still abandoned:
stringy weeds now gunk the ribs
of its sea-ingested hull.
Here, by this sluice-gate, we found that slow worm
amid the shock of rock and thistle,
do you remember that?
You talked as it flicked its lightning-fork tongue,
about a life hiding your love of men,
and a father who was too encased to love.
Do you know what,
I think that was the only talk
of that kind you ever had.
I should probably head home, now —
the sky's gone turquoise
and the creek's fattening with the evening tide;
its sadness is mirror-wide.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
