Ken Smith
Mail from Campania
‘I write from Amalfi, a white
winding bee’s nest, jewels cleft between
mountains falling seaward.
Too hot for my thin northern blood,
too claustrophobic, too many tourists
in baggy shorts, the only shade
beneath the blue plastic umbrella
of the tour guide calling over and over
I’ll be right here, right here.
Always something to be done, forms
to fill, applications in by due date
in triplicate, signed, witnessed, notarised.
Though I’m busy doing nothing
I keep busy anyway, what with the compass
to invent, my Parsifal to write.
Always curiosities, gossip, love affairs
around the back streets of Salerno.
Just sitting watching everyone go by.
In the slow afternoons the old city
whispers to itself in doorways. I fancy
those conceived in the hours of siesta,
they are born clever and grow up
to be lawyers, loansharks, politicians
who steal from the rest of us. Ciao.’
Ken Smith’s New and Selected, Shed, is coming out from Bloodaxe in May of this year. Previous collections include Wild Root and Tender to the Queen of Spain (both published by Bloodaxe).
Page(s) 3
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