Here on Earth

By Jeffrey Wainwright

We are still here on earth. With a troubled sense of wonder, Jeffrey Wainwright's new book witnesses to that earth's ordinariness, profusion and mystery. The collection begins with his beginning, a poem that evokes his own birth: 'Here I Come'. He concludes inevitably with 'Here I Go'.In between are poems that describe and contemplate on the variety of life, ranging from a fleeing mouse to geology and gravity. History features, as so often in his poetry, with the earth's transition from inanimate matter to the fearsome and various place we know. There is a sequence on contemporary Manchester, another on the domestic and wider presence of coal, and a series on the iniquities of the British Empire histories that connect and contend with one another.Describing this last sequence, Shirley Chew notes the poet's 'preoccupation with words and history', his 'self-reflexive wit' and the 'wry look' he takes at the poet's art itself. He is a master of tones of voice, of registers, of patterns and rhythms, and his characteristic inventiveness is everywhere to be found in this book which touches on so many timely and timeless concerns Here on Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781800172760

Jeffrey Wainwright

Jeffrey Wainwright was born in Stoke-on-Trent, educated locally and at Leeds University where he benefited from the poetry scene sustained by Jon Silkin, Ken Smith, Geoffrey Hill and others. He taught for many years at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has also translated drama (from French) and his critical prose includes Poetry the Basics and Acceptable Words: Essays on the Poetry of Geoffrey Hill. This is his ninth volume of poetry, all published by Carcanet. He lives with his wife in Manchester and for parts of the year in Umbria and New South Wales.

Book preview

Here on Earth

JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT

CARCANET POETRY

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Here I come

The Day Begins

Nature Notes

Disillusionment

Landscape

A batch of frail flowers

Walking in the Rain

A Rectangular Garden

Parmenides on the Boardwalk

Fire-smoke

The Lucky Tree

Trees Falling

Standard Model

Here on Earth

Pieces of Coal

Trip Advisor and the Diglake Disaster

Empire News

Coverdale

Antique Camelias

Mug and Jug

Bacon’s Dog

Two Pianos

Did I really do this?

Perce

The Shades

The Window Again

Interval

Here I Go

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

for Judith

Here I come

Here I come, as though

down a water-slide, head-first

from my mother’s crying,

shouldering her pelvic bone, mucus-clad,

bloodied, slithering, hard to grasp,

gulping at this foreign gas,

screwed-up against the light.

Here is all there is of me,

me exactly,

into life and clinging to it

without reflection, the boundary of me,

the knuckle, kneecap,

anything there is to celebrate,

anything divine,

is here in this wawl, squirm and slather.

The Day Begins

They come into my room, these friends

whom I am always glad to see,

and insist that it is past dawn,

time to get up now.

They are bright and positive

and I am happy to hear this news

for here, lying on my back, I have been waiting

and it means I have come through.

They busy themselves about the room,

tidying, preparing,

bumping at the edges of my dream.

They are so trustworthy these friends

why would I not get up and taste the day?

Nature Notes

from a train:

two crows gleaning a shaven field

some dozen naked sheep nearby

I have nothing else to say on this

##

a scuffling in the undergrowth:

something wants to live unseen,

to escape notice, to make good

##

along the woodland path

this full tangle of youthful trees,

creepers, white flowers

a blotch of orange springing

from a long-fallen tree

##

its body stamped into the gravel

half-way down, printed by a tyre-track

the snake’s head is intact,

its mouth open, stricken

it must have lived on like this

##

I am paused by a cobweb in the climbing-rose,

only seen in a sudden light,

awaiting the blunderers

near the light

lies the information,

the cunning architecture

of each voracious thread

##

a young fox in the headlights

turns back across the road -

the wrong choice

but it makes it

##

the yucca flowers late

its white compilations look fleecy from here

those sharp green leaves

its ramparts

on it