For the first time this year, The White Review Poet’s Prize was open to poets based anywhere in the world. Last month we announced a shortlist of eight poets. ...
we collected together all of the scientists and historians & i said
okay, how about him
he was a murderer – but it’s
a photograph sun in
his eyes how many decades since
he tried it on?
we tried it on,
did we? we wouldn’t do it, she said
& we took lifts from vans
on longwall street, pulled our tights up
from the waist, snacked outside libraries –
we needed headrushes
to break our reading
we salute you from new college’s slippery mound
where we climbed to escape the tourists
& their guidebooks, laughing
at their own hands we salute you
& your endeavours
noli me tangere, i am flying
i am flayed today – there are exams
& it is a good rotten apple summer, i think we bit away
the shade
i spent so long reading reprinted old books that when i read
the new ones you told me about they said
oxford’s problem is all the women
who won’t fuck you – i thought
that’s interesting baby, did i make you sick?
the minstrels strummed
& we thumbed back through the pages – margins full of us
this one’s about anne boleyn & this one
is about wild game the rhyme – it’s so quiet
noli me tangere, is it my right
to say that? i didn’t like my legs
but didn’t know what to wear
in case you saw them
& we spent lunches stuck on dead princes’ faces
this is not what you’re like
you only want to sing
about how much you love us anyway
