Poem
Karen McCarthy Woolf
TASTING NOTE FOR GRIEF #17
TASTING NOTE FOR GRIEF #17
TASTING NOTE FOR GRIEF #17
Long and complex on the palaterage attacks the tastebuds,
a territorial robin whose wings
coruscate the epiglottis, insidious
as rust in a cut. Her jaw
has started to clamp. Remembering
is a port wine stain.
Similes are useless
on this red staircasethat ascends:
an upside down madder root
feeling its way to the sky.
She has become a connoisseur
of its avoided flavours’ Titian hues.
The nose has notes of cherry soda,
ginger biscuit, sang de boeuf.
This is one for laying down:
it will keep for years under the earth.
© 2013, Karen McCarthy Woolf
From: Poetry from Art at Tate Modern 2011
Publisher: Tate, ed. Pascale Petit, London
From: Poetry from Art at Tate Modern 2011
Publisher: Tate, ed. Pascale Petit, London
Karen McCarthy Woolf
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, )
The title poem of Karen McCarthy Woolf’s pamphlet – a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and New Statesman Book of the Year in 2006 – came about as a piece of serendipity: “I was sitting at my desk wondering what to write,” says the poet, “so I cut a Sharon fruit in half. The result was The Worshipful Company of Pomegranate Slicers.”
This attention and receptivity to the world around her – its...
This attention and receptivity to the world around her – its...
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Poems of Karen McCarthy Woolf
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TASTING NOTE FOR GRIEF #17
Long and complex on the palaterage attacks the tastebuds,
a territorial robin whose wings
coruscate the epiglottis, insidious
as rust in a cut. Her jaw
has started to clamp. Remembering
is a port wine stain.
Similes are useless
on this red staircasethat ascends:
an upside down madder root
feeling its way to the sky.
She has become a connoisseur
of its avoided flavours’ Titian hues.
The nose has notes of cherry soda,
ginger biscuit, sang de boeuf.
This is one for laying down:
it will keep for years under the earth.
From: Poetry from Art at Tate Modern 2011
TASTING NOTE FOR GRIEF #17
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