Marie Marshall

Photography on wings is the title of an exhibition, to be staged in Nottingham from 7th June to 31st July, of the photographs of Harminder Nagi. The photographs, all of winged creatures, will be accompanied by poetry by twenty international poets including myself. The exhibition is an extension of the book Continents Connect: poetry on wings which was published in 2012. If you’re anywhere near Nottingham between the dates mentioned above, please do make a point of going along to visit the exhibition. For those of you who can’t make it, here’s the poem I wrote for the book; it’s called ‘Eros and Psyche’, and I wrote it as though for Emily Dickinson.

I have your beauty safe in a box, ever since
I scotched my shoulder with a half-nocked arrow.
Sometimes I let it out to sit amongst the flowers
and drink; it settles until I shade it from the sun.

Things like this are made to delight us, I muse.
The cynic at my side shakes his head, quotes
a priori laws, says that the world is not about us.

The heart seeks pleasure first, I tell him firmly,
and I fall so deep in love with the phrase that
I etch it on my next arrow, drive that one deep
into the ambushed back of a poet, to her surprise.