Poem
John Glenday
Island Song
Island Song
Island Song
I cannot see my mother’s face;no longer know my father’s name.
It’s the forgetting of the world
keeps me sane.
A stranger’s laugh, a neighbour’s death;
my wife’s despair, my daughter’s grief.
It’s the forgetting of the world
gives me breath.
The hungry, old, surrounding sea,
heaves at a field’s worn edge in me.
It’s the forgetting of the world
sets us free.
© 2009, John Glenday
From: Grain
Publisher: Picador, London
Published with kind permission of the author and Picador.
From: Grain
Publisher: Picador, London
John Glenday
(Scotland, 1952)
John Glenday was born in Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, in 1952, and lives in Drumnadrochit in the Scottish Highlands. His first collection, The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets, 1989) won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and his second, Undark (Peterloo Poets, 1995), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His most recent collection, Grain (Picador, 2009) was also a Poetry Book Society Recommenda...
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Poems of John Glenday
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Island Song
I cannot see my mother’s face;no longer know my father’s name.
It’s the forgetting of the world
keeps me sane.
A stranger’s laugh, a neighbour’s death;
my wife’s despair, my daughter’s grief.
It’s the forgetting of the world
gives me breath.
The hungry, old, surrounding sea,
heaves at a field’s worn edge in me.
It’s the forgetting of the world
sets us free.
From: Grain
Published with kind permission of the author and Picador.
Island Song
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