Anthony Edkins
I Con While I Can
When I was a boy
Icons
(sometimes with a k)
were
stiff hieratic figures
depicting Pantokrator
or Christ
of interest only
to the Orthodox
and dead Byzantium.
Then
as I grew older
the word
(often
in conjunction with charisma)
began to slip
was used
to finger
‘personalities’
and their violent deaths:
Bobby and JFK
Martin Luther King
Marilyn Monroe
John Lennon
Che
and Princess Di...
Now
(like myself)
the word’s
scraping the barrel:
Icon is
promiscuously applied
to any filmstar
pop star
top model
or sportsperson
with seven-figure earnings
and a highly mobile
photogenic
phiz.
Anthony Edkin’s latest publications are The Exile (Hearing Eye) and Life as it Comes, published earlier this year by Redbeck Press (see review on page 51). He taught translation from Spanish at University College, London, for a dozen years. He no longer teaches, but continues to translate Spanish poetry as well as working towards producing his own Collected Poems.
Page(s) 81
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The