Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2021: Night Shift

In the blue orbit

of a night shift

 

I glimpse myself

beyond the window

 

untethered, an astronaut

adrift from my craft

 

in the bleary otherness

of particles and dust.

 

If I could reach

through light years

 

and touch my blue-gloved hand

out there

 

in the refracted constellation

of flickering monitors,

 

if I could be heard above

their vital signs

 

and respiratory hum,

I would ask me

 

if the earth is still

as beautiful as they say.

Poem recorded as part of Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2021. Used by permission of author.

Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2021 Winners

Poetry Archive Now! was established in 2020 to enable us to gather recordings from a much wider pool of talented poets from the UK and ...

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Martin Figura

Martin Figura lives in Norwich with Helen Ivory, they began hosting Live from The Butchery Zoom readings during Lockdown winning the 2021 Saboteur Best Spoken Word Night Ward. Whistle was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the 2013 Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show. Dr Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine was published in 2016 and a new edition of Whistle (Cinnamon Press) in 2018. He is currently Poet-in-Residence for Salisbury NHS.

Glossary

A special thank you to our WordView 2021 poets.

Chair of the Judging Panel, Imtiaz Dharker, says: "An idea that began as a response to the world shutting down has, joyfully, become a way to invite the whole world in. It has been exciting to see the entries come in from different countries, from marginalised voices, from people of all backgrounds who now know this space belongs to them. My fellow judges and I were struck by the immediacy of experience and commitment to language in the winning entries. It's also good to think that the rest of the entries will continue to be seen as an invaluable record of our times."

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