Work by John Whitworth
Two Things the Young Poet Liked Way Back Then
I liked it when my arse was
tickled with a feather by
Botticelli virgins
in a knocking shop,
Fear of Flying
Assemble what you need--bamboo,
Brown paper, string, a pot of glue,
Feathers from Highland capercaillies,
Gut from guitars or ukuleles,
Stout cardboard, twenty small brass screws,
Down Oz
I knew what I knew
And I knew it was you
With the eyes of a child and a heart untrue,
Because, because
Of the way it was
Down Oz when times were wild.
The Sacrament of the Water
She bit his head off but he had it coming.
He was unfit to live. He had to die.
Blood cakes the calendar. The air is humming.
She tore his head clean off. He had it coming.
The sun is silent and the night is drumming.
The night calls out for Justice. Tooth and eye
Compels this blessed hammer of the Lord
Whose instruments are Fire and the Sword.
Reading the Bones
The tiny bones of children in a cupboard,
The ghost of Garbo knitting in the chair
Beside your bed, the rocking of the eggshells,
Descending dust that glitters on the air,
Interview with Walter Ancarrow
I never start with an idea, or I nearly never do. Poems are made up of words, not ideas, just as paintings are made up of paint, not subjects. I don't care too much about meaning, but a lot about sound and image. Meaning is where prose lives. "A green thought in a green shade." What does that mean? Or, come to that, Larkin's "Such attics cleared of me. Such absences." Or Wallace Stevens' marvellous incantation about Tehuantapec.
Holy Shark
The world where I live is the world that I make,
And the world that I make is the world that I wish,
And the world that I wish is the road that I take,
That I take to the dark of an underground lake,
And the answer to this is a fish, is a fish,
And the answer to this is a fish.
Sweet Albert
Antique and frantic and antediluvian,
Monument massive, impassive, magnificent,
Rich as the Inca, the golden Peruvian,
Omnidirectional, omnibenificent,
2012 Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival reading (video)
John Whitworth reads two poems, "Aaargh" and "As Tall As Trees" at the 2012 Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival. Credit to Magarida Malarkey and Sarah Lawrence College.
John Whitworth is one of those fattish, baldish, backward-looking, provincial poets in which England is so rich. His tenth collection, Girlie Gangs, was published by Enitharmon in 2012 to international acclaim. Well, Les Murray liked it. And Walter Ancarrow in America. You might also consider Writing Poetry published by A & C Black, one of those how-to books; it has run to a second edition and is pretty good, though he (the poet) would say that, wouldn’t he? He once won £5,000 for a single poem. Listen and marvel.