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Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: The Lie
by Nairn Kennedy
This idea came from visiting a certain well-known coffee chain which asks for your first name to identify which coffee is yours, and turned into an exploration of the alienation felt by an immigrant. Sometimes a poem takes over from the writer and develops its own theme, which is one reason why we write.
Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: The Lie
Once, I had a name as smooth and clear
as all the streams of Poland; it poured through ears
like melting snow; but over here
it warped to ugly consonants
which clattered off your tongues
like Scrabble tiles.
In the local coffee shop last week,
baristas pounded on their war drums
bashing out the grit of coffee grounds.
What name? said the Recording Angel at the counter,
poised with a tattered ballpoint and plastic cup;
the queue behind me snorted in frustration.
I stared straight through my spectacles and hers
into brown eyes. Jim, I said, biting
a suddenly unwieldy tongue.
Recording provided as part of Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020. Used by permission of the author.
A special thank you to our WordView 2020 poets.
Chair of the Judging Panel, Imtiaz Dharker, says: “The hundreds of entries we received blew in to the Archive like a breath of pure, unpolluted air from all over the world, revealing something of the time we are living in, some telling it straight, some slant. It was exciting to check in to the Poetry Archive’s Youtube channel every morning and come upon one unexpected voice after another."
See the collectionWatch the full Wordview 2020 playlist