Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.

Fiona Benson is an Anglo-Scottish writer currently living in Exeter with her husband James. She was educated at Trinity College Oxford and then St Andrews University, where she completed the MLitt in Creative Writing and a PhD on Ophelia as a dramatic type in early modern drama. She received an Eric Gregory award in 2006 and is working on her first book of poems.

Lares

I keep going back to that bird, snagged
by a halter or skein of fibre or yarn
and strung from the gutter of the opposite house
where it quartered the wind, each bead of its spine
and the dead-drop of its skull
lit up against the breeze-block wall,
claws pushed out as if skidding to a halt
while its beak transmitted code.

I say a prayer to you, small ghost,
small noosed spirit of the eaves,
dangling from the prow of the house
singing all four winds, the spindle and pin
and needle and thorn of your hollow bones
riding you on air that is redolent with spores
after the fact of your scavenged heart,
the stolen tissues of your wings.

1. Darryl Says:
   October 15th, 2009 at 5:31 pm

   I love this. Your phrases (e.g.,”small noosed spirit of the eaves”) bring a vivid and emotional response without being sentimental.

Add your comment