Poetry Month 10 – Some Weather

Today’s poem is from Vona Groarke’s collection Spindrift. It’s a lovely, clean collection. I like the way she still retains a pleasing obliqueness despite still sounding clear and fresh (sorry I make no sense when talking about poetry and/or dancing about architecture).

I love her words about the title sequence:

There are forty-five small poems in the title sequence, one, I suppose, for each year of my life. (I’ll be forty-four when the book comes out: for once, I’ll have to catch up with my poems instead of running always ahead, watching for what’s cast off behind to see if there’s a poem in it.)

Some Weather

Among the things
(though these are not things)
I did to pre-empt the storm were:
upturn, stow, disconnect,
shut down, shutter, shut.

But, while the house sulked,
the sky scolded
and I observed an hour’s breadth,
the storm tossed out its tinsmith verbs
somewhat to the west.

You can find some more of Vona Groarke’s poetry online:

‘Pier’ can be found here (where the Guardian manages to call it a feminist work because she nods to a fisherman rather than recoiling in fear of the man-beast he surely really is)

‘Ghost’ is here (please note I have a secret love of anything which describes a kind of blue as “the exact blue of…”. I could explain but it would take ages, and you’d think I was… well, weirder than you already do).

‘Bodkin’ (from the same collection as Some Weather) is here, and has inspired me to go and find a poem by Charlotte Mew to share tomorrow.