ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
jw summerisle is an autistic poet from the english east midlands. once commended by and once a winner of the foyles young poets of the year award, they have chapbooks with blacksunflowers poetry press (kinfolk, 2022), back room poetry (the book of bad mothers, 2024).
Also by jw summerisle:
the book of bad mothers
kinfolk
September 11, 2024
beechey island nudes
the composition of snake oil adapts
as the body's exhumed. unseen
flesh smells sweet
to the starving, and a
dog is tethered to
the shoreline. it's
a comfort to know that
i can't trust you. coffins,
soft from the permafrost,
split flowers where they
bloom. white and yellow
like the dead. we
could theorise that
it's poison, collect
cans from the bay, our
fingers black and tainted,
lead in the blood and
shining with hoarfrost.
our skin glistens when
exposed. we
remember to
decay. it is
so ugly. there
is so much
pain in being
hopeful.
the poem draws on footage from the 1986 documentary on the Northwest Passage, that followed Owen Beattie as he exhumed and studied the remains of three of Franklin's crewmen buried there. it is an immensely haunting and disturbing piece of media as the team poke through the scraps of tin cans and gravel, and undress the men with surprising tenderness to speculate on their cause of death. these are unknown people, so far away, whom i have seen undressed and laid out so vulnerably. this is a poem from a presently unpublished collection, looking at colonialism and bodies, the english desire to know the unknowable at distance, and the moral greyness of it all.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
