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Poem
(To A)

Harold Pinter

‘I shall miss you so much when I am dead’

Beyond Sunset

Mary Ruefle

‘Red sadness never appears sad . . . it appears in flashes of passion, anger, fear, inspiration and courage, in dark unsellable visions; it is an upside down penny concealed beneath a tea cosy.’

Sampati

Vikram Seth

‘Why do you cry?’

Coming Night

James Schuyler

‘what did you think of, / how long did you wait’

Salad Days

Barbara Ras

‘nothing in those early evenings free / of care could have prepared you’

Crusoe

Salman Rushdie

‘Let me tell you, boyo, bach: I love this place, where green hills shelter me from fear.’

Why A Colored Girl Will Slice You If You Talk Wrong About Motown

Patricia Smith

‘Their newborn children grew / like streetlights. We grew like insurance payments. / We grew like resentment.’

6 March 1989

Salman Rushdie

‘Damn, brother. You saw what they did to my face? / Poked out my eyes. Knocked teeth out of place’.

Don’t Flinch

Adrienne Rich

‘Lichen-green lines of shingle pulsate and waver / when you lift your eyes. It’s the glare.’

Four Poems

Peter Robinson

‘I swelter in the dusk / and chase the flies, abstractedly, / until I half forget them.’

Face to Face

Tomas Tranströmer

ʻThe birds refused to fly and the soul / grated against the landscape.ʼ

Vinod Kumar Shukla: Two Poems

Vinod Kumar Shukla

‘The truth is, though no one says it, / They’re all worried about their children.’

Bird of Fire

Rowan Ricardo Phillips

‘No more, no longer the sweet difference / Between real and dream I knew.’

Endpapers

Adrienne Rich

‘Consider yourself / a trombone blowing unheard.’