Two Poems by Carola Luther
PN Review 134, July - August 2000
Next week, join us for From an Island in The Antipodes: Poetry and Painting with Gregory O’Brien, the final part of PN Review’s 50th anniversary celebrations!
Highlighting some of his recent work for PN Review and Carcanet, From an Island in the Antipodes is the first northern hemisphere showing of O'Brien's paintings, painted poems, prints, drawings artist-books and handpress productions. The exhibition also features works made in collaboration with other artists and poets.
The public preview will be held at Manchester Poetry Library at MMU on 16th January from 17:30 - 19:30, and is free to attend. The exhibition will run until 10th February.
On 18th January, celebrate 50 years of poetry around the world at Global PN Review, where we will bring together poets from around the world to commemorate this milestone and showcase the global impact of the magazine. Gregory will be reading alongside Jenny Bornholdt, Carola Luther, Kit Fan and Christine Roseeta Walker, with contributions from Togara Muzanenhamo, Oksana Maksymchuk, Jee Leong Koh, Fawzia Muradali Kane and others - book your free ticket here.
‘Then there was silence’
Then there was silence. And crying. And arms.
And trying to shut your mouth. And the new
shapes of the mouths of friends, their moving hands.
And the sitting and looking and hearing an echo
on the placing of bowls being prepared
for the washing, and noticing the shutness
of the hospital window, the trying
to open the window which wouldn't.
The someone saying it was peaceful. The way
Ivan tidied the table. Moved the sheet.
Picked up the cup. Folded the clothes. Put
down the cup. Walked out of the room
with silence. The sitting and staring. The hearing
the bubbles of sadness in somebody's throat
close-up and the faraway life of corridors.
The staring at the unfamiliar fawn of your skin
on the sheet, absorbing the last of the warmth
of your hand in my hand and the stillness,
the wrongness of stillness in a man
with his mouth wide open, eyes not quite shut.
Her hair is discouraged by millennium static but Christmas remains red and green
Station Road. She feels the night growing glass,
hears it splinter minutely. Norland Road. The stars
are clean. Water Street. With vicious mathematics
they take their positions, give signs. Bridge Street.
The tarmac glints, there will be accidents. Wharf Street.
An ice this minute takes root, cracking the fields
for tomorrow. Rochdale Road. She remembers her soul
is the sum of her memories, she should not be wasteful.
Rochdale Road. Tomorrow, ponds will be stopped
with thick lenses, grass blades rigid with frost. Rochdale Road.
Nowhere to hide for the frogs. Middle Street. She is afraid
of the calendar, unlooping the delicate gray of her brain.
East Street. The moon's in a skid. Stile Terrace. Planet
without water, it could be an omen twisting there in the air.
Doorstep. The neighbours are shouting. Kitchen. The moon
could also be bits of a saucer flung from a window.
Carola Luther’s most recent collection On the Way to Jerusalem Farm was published by Carcanet Press in September 2021, and has been shortlisted for the 2022 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Her two earlier collections, Walking the Animals (2004) and Arguing with Malarchy (2011) were also published by Carcanet Press.
Walking the Animals was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for First Collection in 2004. Carola was Poet in Residence at the Wordsworth Trust in 2012, and the Trust published her poetry pamphlet Herd in the same year.
She was born in South Africa, and moved to the UK in 1981. She now lives and works in the Yorkshire Pennines.
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Find out more about the upcoming exhibition here.