Issue 3: September 2003
Rhian Gallagher | A.B. Jackson | John McAuliffe | Jane Routh | Sarah Wardle
SARAH WARDLE
Word Tasting
First agitate the word in your glass,
swilling it round anti-clockwise
to let the air into the language.
Tilt the glass against the tablecloth.
Notice the colour. Is this word golden
or brick-red? Does the nose remind you
of freshly-mown grass or tropical fruit?
Is the word smoky or woody on the palate?
Do the syllables have a long aftertaste?
Has the word been aged? Do you like it?
Now try this. It is a controversial word,
the oldest vintage known to man. The seeds
can be used to grow this word in Europe
or the New World. Each climate gives
the word a different flavour. It's versatile,
easily turned into language. Growers love it
across the financial spectrum. Many find
this word smooth and buttery, fruity and ripe.
They say it is an alpha word, their favourite.
Some drink it early and often, others will
store it in their cellars for drinking later.
Then again, still others find the word bitter
and acidic, screwing up their faces, saying
it reminds them of cat's pee on gooseberry bushes.
There's no accounting for taste. Make up
your own mind. What does it remind you of?
In the beginning the label said God.
Arcadia
As if a country kitchen were where we sat
and you wore a smock, and I an apron,
as I rocked a newborn asleep in his cot,
while through the door came laughter from our other children,
and this table, instead of papers and books,
held a jug of ale and a weekly wage,
while the scent of baked ham spread as it cooked,
and with one hand I stirred in onion and sage,
I caught you lift your straggling thoughts over a fence,
your face framed offguard, gazing fields away,
as you herded your words into a sentence,
your eyes brown and deep as the soil's clay.
Digitalis
As a child I used to sift
through batches of grass
for four-leaf clovers.
Each three-headed stem
on the factory floor
looked the same as the others.
That summer a bee
must have cross-pollinated
a foxglove and hollyhock.
The freak flower stood tall,
despite being stuck
in nature's cul-de-sac.
Its petals opened wide,
a satellite dish
receiving strange radar,
ultrasonic waves,
the likes of which
most gardens can't hear.
I marvelled at it,
unaware I was growing
up schizophrenic,
neither better nor worse
than anybody else,
just different.
Sarah Wardle was born in 1969 and won Poetry Review's New Poet of the Year Award in 1999. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry News, PN Review, Thumbscrew, Metre, The Interpreter's House, London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Independent on Sunday and The Observer. Her poems have also appeared in anthologies, including Anvil New Poets 3 (Anvil, 2001), We Have Come Through (Bloodaxe, 2003). She is Lecturer in Poetry at Middlesex University.
First collection available from Amazon.co.uk: Fields Away (Bloodaxe, 2003).