Paul Groves
Greenland Literati
You cannot bin your invitation to the annual party.
Lars will be there with his woman Mimi,
both squiffy on arrival. Niels will greet you
with malodorous breath. Karen’s cleavage
will command attention. They’ll have written nothing
as usual. Initial high-mindedness will dwindle
to gossip after the chilled akvavit
with its follow-up of Tuborg and marinaded herring.
Henrik will slap your back with fake camaraderie:
‘How’s the modern saga progressing – or shouldn’t I ask?’
Riposte with a query about his planned haiku.
Poul will again lament Godthåb renaming itself Nuuk.
Poor old Carsten will go on about his blockbuster,
which has the gestation period of a mammoth.
And, yes, a pecking order is discernible.
The cards of personality rarely get shuffled.
We know who agrees with whom that Mogens
should remain spokesperson, were anyone to listen
beyond their coterie, their chairs and glasses.
Meanwhile, the ice sheet crumbles into the ocean.
Plants grow with increasing variety.
Consider transferring your dubious devotion
to the up-and-coming Agricultural Society.
Page(s) 6
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