Then

On the Aerial

Starling is numerous, holds in his throat
the many colours of his oily coat.
Each year he – like his fathers – finds new noise,
wolf-whistles tall as boys,
the phone’s trill, then the shriek
of Kirsty, loudest child in all our street.
Tonight he softly mews.  Then through his voice are poured
jay, blackbird’s honey, thrush-lilts.  He, half-heard,
tilts at faint stars, is Spring, is every bird.


Alison Brackenbury’s eighth collection, Then, was published by Carcanet in April 2013.

‘The delicate particularity […] of her style chimes with that of the world. [….]
One hopes that Brackenbury’s kind of distinctive formal sensibility won’t disappear any time soon.’
 (Vidyan Ravinthiran, reviewing Then in Poetry London)
 

If you have any comments on this publication, or questions about it,  Alison Brackenbury  would be pleased to hear from you.

logo