Glass Wings

By Fleur Adcock

Fleur Adcock's title refers to the transparent, glittering wings of some of the species -bees, mosquitoes, dragonflies -celebrated or lamented in a sequence of poems on encounters with arthropods, from the stick insects and crayfish of her native New Zealand to the clothes' moths that infest her London house. There is an elegy for the once abundant caterpillars of her English childhood, while other sections of the book include elegies for human beings and poems based on family wills from the 16th to the 20th centuries, as well as birthday greetings for old friends and for a new great-grandson. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Mar 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780370712

Fleur Adcock

Born in New Zealand in 1934, Fleur Adcock spent the war years in England, returning with her family to New Zealand in 1947. She emigrated to Britain in 1963, working as a librarian in London until 1979. In 1977-78 she was writer-in-residence at Charlotte Mason College of Education, Ambleside. She was Northern Arts Literary Fellow in 1979-81, living in Newcastle, becoming a freelance writer after her return to London. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2000). Fleur Adcock published three pamphlets with Bloodaxe: Below Loughrigg (1979), Hotspur (1986) and Meeting the Comet (1988), as well as her translations of medieval Latin lyrics, The Virgin & the Nightingale (1983). She also published two translations of Romanian poets with Oxford University Press, Orient Express by Grete Tartler (1989) and Letters from Darkness by Daniela Crasnaru (1994). All her other collections were published by Oxford University Press until they shut down their poetry list in 1999, after which Bloodaxe published her collected poems Poems 1960-2000 (2000), followed by Dragon Talk (2010), Glass Wings (2013), The Land Ballot (2015) and Hoard (2017). The Mermaid's Purse is due from Bloodaxe in 2021. Poems 1960-2000 and Hoard are Poetry Book Society Special Commendations while Glass Wings is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. In October 2019 Fleur Adcock was presented with the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry 2019 by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern.

Book preview

FLEUR ADOCK

GLASS WINGS

Poetry Book Society Recommendation

Fleur Adcock’s title refers to the transparent, glittering wings of some of the species – bees, mosquitoes, dragonflies – celebrated or lamented in a sequence of poems on encounters with arthropods, from the stick insects and crayfish of her native New Zealand to the clothes’ moths that infest her London house. There is an elegy for the once abundant caterpillars of her English childhood, while other sections of the book include elegies for human beings and poems based on family wills from the 16th to the 20th centuries, as well as birthday greetings for old friends and for a new great-grandson.

‘In Glass Wings, Fleur Adcock is as clear-eyed as always in a collection that ranges widely over lost worlds, family histories and memories of childhood, but always maintains the art of seemingly artless observation.’

–

ADAM NEWEY

, Guardian, Best Poetry of 2013

‘Informality and immediacy are vivid ways to remake a world; and Adcock’s style has not dated in the half-century since her debut.’

–

FIONA SAMPSON

, Guardian

COVER PHOTOGRAPH

Blue darner dragonfly on leaf, close up, Canada.

PANORAMIC IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES

Fleur Adcock

GLASS WINGS

For Gregory and Andrew

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following publications in which some of these poems first appeared: Agenda, Ambit, The Guardian, Magma, New Zealand Books, PN Review, Poetry London, Poetry Review, The Poetry Paper, The Rialto, The RSPB Anthology of Wildlife Poetry, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Yellow Nib.

‘For Michael at 70’ was commissioned by Robin Robertson for Love Poet, Carpenter: Michael Longley at Seventy (Enitharmon, 2009); ‘An 80th Birthday Card for Roy’ was commissioned by Peter Robinson for An Unofficial Roy Fisher (Shearsman Books, 2010); ‘The Translator’ was written for KJV: Old Text, New Poetry (Wivenbooks, 2011); ‘The Royal Visit’ was commissioned by Carol Ann Duffy for Jubilee Lines (Faber, 2012).

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

At the Crossing

For Michael at 70

An 80th Birthday Card for Roy

Finding Elizabeth Rainbow

Spuggies

Fox

The Saucer

The Belly Dancer

Ingeburg

Alfred

Match Girl

Alumnae Notes

Nominal Aphasia

Walking Stick

Macular Degeneration

Mrs Baldwin

Charon

Having Sex with the Dead

TESTATORS

Robert Harington, 1558

Anthony Cave, 1558

Alice Adcock, 1673

Luke Sharpe, 1704

William Clayton, 1725

James Heyes, 1726

Henry Eggington, 1912

William Dick Mackley

The Translator

Intestate

CAMPBELLS

Elegy for Alistair

Port Charles

What the 1950s Were Like

The Royal Visit

The Professor of Music

Coconut Matting

Epithalamium

A Novelty

MY LIFE WITH ARTHROPODS

Wet Feet

Dung Beetle

Caterpillars

Stag Beetle

Praying Mantis

Flea

Hoppy

To the Mosquitoes of Auckland

Stick Insects

Crayfish

Slaters

Ella’s Crane-flies

Orb Web

My Grubby Little Secret