Tuesday Poem: baby grand by Allie Spensley - Foyle Young Poet of the Year 2015
my father showed me how a piano could cleave a room
like a fault line, how a dance could keep you deathless:
the eighty-eight teeth in a piano's mouth chewing up
strips of sheet music like so many pieces of bubblegum.
my father had pounded his fingers into skeleton keys
and molded their locks out of smooth ebony and ivory.
he wore ragtime like a coat and sipped jazz like hot
tea with lemon and spice, danced his way across the
underground platform because there was a sort of music
written on his bones, notes wrapped like handcuffs
around his wrists, rhythms coursing through his
syncopated veins, his piano was his cross and he bore it
through windy city december, from hubbard street
down to west belmont, his face reflecting neon light,
his body buzzing with the notes of the trumpets
like a hot vibrato on his skin, my father's only altar
was a midnight jazz joint; music was his finest language
so I couldn't blame him if he cursed arpeggios all up
and down our kitchen walls, couldn't blame him
if his magic fingers twisted in my mother's hair to
make music that was sour as a dying trombone,
couldn't blame his "please, i'm trying to practice,
just leave me alone, my music, i'm sorry, my music."
© Allie Spensley 2015
Reproduced with permission.
The Young Poet's Award, for poets between the ages of 11 and 17, was founded by the Poetry Society in 1998 and funded by the Foyle Foundation in 2001. Entries are usually in excess of 12,000 poems from all over the world. The judges have to sift out 15 young poets for their prize-winning list. Not an enviable task, but it often throws up some remarkable results.
Ever wondered what happened to all those emerging poets? Allie Spensley was one of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year in 2015. Her poem ‘baby grand’ was the one that stood out for me in the Poetry Society anthology of winning poets, so I thought I’d find out what she was doing now and tracked her down on Facebook.
Allie is from Avon Lake, Ohio, a small town on the shores of Lake Eerie, and she’s now a sophomore at Princeton University, New Jersey. She's been a prize-winner in other poetry competitions too, including Writing for Peace. Her work has been published in The Guardian, and BOXCAR Poetry Review, among others. It's a brilliant start for someone so young.
According to her online profile, she’s been writing for as long as she can remember, but only started seriously reading and writing contemporary short fiction/poetry a few years ago. Allie is passionate about education, particularly in areas with low literacy rates or where girls are prevented from attending school.
In this poem, I love the lack of capitals and the way the lines run on. I like the use of images and metaphors and the way the poem leans into darkness towards the end. There's an undertow of menace.
I think we might be going to see a lot more poetry from Allie Spensley in future - I certainly hope so!
PS congratulations to the Young Poets of 2016, Malika Booker and W.N. Herbert picked out 15 entries from more than 76 countries. It's a very diverse selection. You can see them here.
like a fault line, how a dance could keep you deathless:
the eighty-eight teeth in a piano's mouth chewing up
strips of sheet music like so many pieces of bubblegum.
my father had pounded his fingers into skeleton keys
and molded their locks out of smooth ebony and ivory.
he wore ragtime like a coat and sipped jazz like hot
tea with lemon and spice, danced his way across the
underground platform because there was a sort of music
written on his bones, notes wrapped like handcuffs
around his wrists, rhythms coursing through his
syncopated veins, his piano was his cross and he bore it
through windy city december, from hubbard street
down to west belmont, his face reflecting neon light,
his body buzzing with the notes of the trumpets
like a hot vibrato on his skin, my father's only altar
was a midnight jazz joint; music was his finest language
so I couldn't blame him if he cursed arpeggios all up
and down our kitchen walls, couldn't blame him
if his magic fingers twisted in my mother's hair to
make music that was sour as a dying trombone,
couldn't blame his "please, i'm trying to practice,
just leave me alone, my music, i'm sorry, my music."
© Allie Spensley 2015
Reproduced with permission.
The Young Poet's Award, for poets between the ages of 11 and 17, was founded by the Poetry Society in 1998 and funded by the Foyle Foundation in 2001. Entries are usually in excess of 12,000 poems from all over the world. The judges have to sift out 15 young poets for their prize-winning list. Not an enviable task, but it often throws up some remarkable results.
Ever wondered what happened to all those emerging poets? Allie Spensley was one of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year in 2015. Her poem ‘baby grand’ was the one that stood out for me in the Poetry Society anthology of winning poets, so I thought I’d find out what she was doing now and tracked her down on Facebook.
Allie is from Avon Lake, Ohio, a small town on the shores of Lake Eerie, and she’s now a sophomore at Princeton University, New Jersey. She's been a prize-winner in other poetry competitions too, including Writing for Peace. Her work has been published in The Guardian, and BOXCAR Poetry Review, among others. It's a brilliant start for someone so young.
According to her online profile, she’s been writing for as long as she can remember, but only started seriously reading and writing contemporary short fiction/poetry a few years ago. Allie is passionate about education, particularly in areas with low literacy rates or where girls are prevented from attending school.
In this poem, I love the lack of capitals and the way the lines run on. I like the use of images and metaphors and the way the poem leans into darkness towards the end. There's an undertow of menace.
I think we might be going to see a lot more poetry from Allie Spensley in future - I certainly hope so!
PS congratulations to the Young Poets of 2016, Malika Booker and W.N. Herbert picked out 15 entries from more than 76 countries. It's a very diverse selection. You can see them here.
That's what you call a wow poem! Makes my bones tingle.
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