I have had a new poem,\u00a0Pi\u00e8ce de Shakespeare<\/strong>, published in Bluepepper<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is a found poem written to celebrate Bloomsday<\/a>, which falls on the 16th of June. On this day every year literary nerds such as myself pay homage to James Joyce’s<\/a> ground-breaking novel, Ulysses<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I initially wrote this poem in response to a call out from The Found Poetry Review<\/a><\/em>, which asked writers to create poems from a nominated chapter of Ulysses<\/em>. \u00a0Pi\u00e8ce de Shakespeare <\/strong>is created from chapter 9, where Stephen Dedalus expounds his views about how much of Shakespeare’s life we can deduce from his writing.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately Found Poetry Review<\/em> did not accept my poem (aaw), but if you would like to read their Bloosmsday Issue<\/em>, you can do so here<\/a>. There are some great poems in there, although I will leave it up to you to decide which chapter 9 poem you prefer!<\/p>\n

Luckily, editor Justin Lowe did take a fancy to my poem, and published it on his excellent site, \u00a0Bluepepper<\/a><\/em>. You can read it there<\/a>, (plus much more)\u00a0or alternatively, below. Happy \u00a0belated Bloomsday!<\/p>\n

Pi\u00e8ce de Shakespeare<\/strong><\/p>\n

Come, sheathe your dagger definitions \u2014
\nthe Father, Word, and Holy Breath,
\nthe swan of Avon, has returned to die.<\/p>\n

Lord of language, auric egg,
\nhe lies laid out in stiffness \u2014
\nbronzelidded in the secondbest bed,
\nlips twisted by Venus into prayer,
\ncoffined thoughts embalmed in a spice
\nof words which rise like crooked smoke
\nup to the nostrils of God.<\/p>\n

Why even his errors are portals to discovery!
\nFollowing his lean unlovely lines
\nthrough spaces smaller than red globules of blood
\nwe creepycrawl after his buttocks
\nmeeting robbers, ghosts, old men,\u00a0young men,
\nwives, widows, brothers-in-love;
\nthe molecules all changing, the I becoming other,
\nthe unquiet father reborn in the son \u2014
\nbut always, always, as we walk through him
\nwe are walking into ourselves.<\/p>\n

* A found poem sourced from chapter 9 of James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have had a new poem,\u00a0Pi\u00e8ce de Shakespeare, published in Bluepepper. This is a found poem written to celebrate Bloomsday, which falls on the 16th of June. On this day every year literary nerds such as myself pay homage to James Joyce’s ground-breaking novel, Ulysses. I initially wrote this poem in response to a call out from The Found Poetry … <\/p>\n