Jennifer Moxley: Into the Bedroom
Certainly deluded wisdom and all
those strewn packages from Christmas,
“scholar’s disorder” keeps me covered
under this comforter thinking of us.
There there Erasmus, sinuous mind of love
in all its fibres off to Paris to see
what’s become of an antique world.
Cut me a bolt of satin Vermeer
sing deep your told conviction,
lace up trussed up laughing feet
then turn your head and listen:
the parakeet doth chirp, the Moon
remarks my memory
and I am bending draped to brass
in pain and folly trembling.
There are so many so-so poets around, highly praised, selling well. In this context it is refreshing to discover a poet like Jennifer Moxley, one of the five best poets of her generation, who is an interesting thinker as well as a brilliant and moving wordsmith. The poem above is from her 1996 debut collection Imagination Verses, where you can see her trying out words, subjects and her place in a complex world. As a poet, she is constantly getting better. You can buy the 2006 reissue of Imagination Verses here, or her best book so far, the 2007 collection The Line here. If you are interested in contemporary poetry at all, you can’t possibly bypass Moxley’s extraordinary work
