Reincarnation is to me a poem that belongs in the 21st century. Aren’t we all tired of 21st century life, all the working for nothing. A grinding pecking order of management, middle management, supervisors. Complaints, customer service. When did you ever hear of a worried bullfrog? I could read a hundred poems like this, I rarely get sent poems that feel like they are written in this tiring world.
Ash Bowden’s ‘God hangs out Her washing’ also feels like a poem written for the tired. Maybe this is why God doesn’t listen to our prayers. There’s just so much laundry to do. Who enjoys laundry? No one. Not even God,
Gordon Scapens ‘Insight’ contemplates the future of language, that one day the only language will be silence. It doesn’t sound so far fetched if you’ve ever watched a Youtube video that censors normal words used in normal sentences for fear of being blocked by the algorithm.
The quote in the title comes from Maria Candeais’s poem ‘The Academic Study of the Physics of Sound.’ There used to be less sound in the world, now there’s sound everywhere. Some sound is preserved and some only exists as emotion, as memory. As part of a family hierachy where ‘little girls alway lose.’
You can read the poems in full at the links below for free throughout May. Other poems are available to members for £2 a month, sign up here
Maria Candeais ‘The Academic Study of the Physics of Sound’
Michael Lee Johnson ‘Reincarnation’
Ash Bowden ‘God hangs out Her washing’
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