Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Frances Sackett

print this page

Former Person, Former Place

It became too hard to study
Beowulf and Chaucer
When my country was being blown to bits.

I would sleep all day
In these rain-drenched streets
To dream of home.

Now I sell La Perla -
Silk lingerie and cashmere jumpers,
To Italian and Japanese tourists.

London has provided us
With our ghettos -
Our coffee shops and foodstores.

I was half my mother
Half my father;
A natural enough mix,

Except the blood of Jew and Serb
Together.  Patterns of memory
Rise up to my throat,

Live in the eyes of my people
Like a language of displacement.
We taste the same blood

On our tongues,
Smell the Adriatic in our nostrils,
See the pale violet mountains far away.

And the beautiful word
That repeats in our ears -
Yugoslavia - Yugoslavia -

People say was a former place;
Doesn’t exist any more
On the map.

 

poetrymagazines note:

Frances Sackett, 'The Hard Glass' (Seren) ISBN 185411-167-1

Page(s) 52-53

Back to top