Poems by Karen McCarthy Woolf
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To Dover from Calais – (A landay)
After midnight we drive through Sangatte on the outskirts, where teenagers rush to the tunnel In the big-cat gleam of our headlamps the boys pause for a heartbeat---disappear in a flash If you’re not really a Syrian is it safer in the Congo, or Afghanistan? While we all fiddle with our smartphones sniffer dogs inhale the articulated lorry Two ferrymen tell me how they feel okay because they pull up the bridge and sail away It’s only a joke if it’s funny so I don’t laugh at ‘they weren’t exactly invited.’ Tell me, if Great Britain is so full why is this middle-of-the-night-crossing so empty? Kingfisher The truth is I’ve a long history of dead birds and there’s been no cadavers since those first months mourning my baby son, so when I find her, at the top of some steps on a ledge leading to a beach, full of tourists sheltering from the heat under striped ombrelloni, I do what I always do and lean in to take a picture. I have no idea this fallen star is Halcyon, immortal daughter of Aeolus, keeper of the winds and namesake of the Islands shimmering on the horizon---A turquoise streak over mottled green suggests a juvenile. I wonder why she’s here, on a beach, rather than by the river. Empty eye sockets contradict an immaculate plumage: she’s out of place. At least that’s what I think. In truth this is Halcyon’s homeland, her story ends and begins on this iridescent strip of waves that become her widow’s pyre and grave. The Gods were kinder than expected and resurrect Ceyx and his grief-struck wife, turn them into birds (kingfishers to be exact) but as is the way with these things, there’s a catch. Halcyon must lay her eggs in winter and when she returns to nest at the water’s edge the chicks are always swept offshore. Naturally, her sorrow is immense and she wails and begs until Aeolus is permitted to hold the winds at bay over the winter solstice, so the storms are calmed and the fledglings prevail. Now, even in summer, the crowded boats capsize and there are no patriarchs with open arms who protect the young and control weather. There are no Halcyon Days; the sea itself is dying. |
About the poet
Born in London to English and Jamaican parents, Karen McCarthy Woolf holds a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Prize and an AHRC doctoral scholarship at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is exploring ecological poetry, the city and loss. Her collection An Aviary of Small Birds (Carcanet, 2014) commemorates a baby son who died in childbirth and was a Forward Prize Best First Collection nomination and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. It was selected by Kate Kellaway as the Guardian/Observer Book of the Month and it was described as a ‘beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect debut’. Karen’s poems are translated into Spanish and most recently Swedish, as part of the European poetry initiative Versopolis. Her work as has also been dropped by helicopter over the Houses of Parliament by the Chilean collective Casagrande. Karen has a longstanding interest in cross-arts practice: she has collaborated with artists, filmmakers, musicians and choreographers, presented her work as installation and performed in the UK, US and Europe. She has read at a wide variety of national and international venues and festivals, including Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Ledbury, the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Centre, V&A, Tate Modern and Science Museum in the UK, as well as in the US, Singapore, Sweden and the Caribbean. Karen is also a fellow of The Complete Works — a nationwide professional development programme committed to creating more cultural diversity in poetry publishing and is the editor of the associated anthology Ten: The New Wave published by Bloodaxe Books. Karen was recently the poet-in-residence at the National Maritime Museum, responding to the museum’s exhibition on international migration. For more: mccarthywoolf.com |
