{"id":13104,"date":"2017-01-17T16:04:45","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T16:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=13104"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:17:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T16:17:03","slug":"our-final-picks-for-2016-elisabeth-sennitt-clough-and-john-mackie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/our-final-picks-for-2016-elisabeth-sennitt-clough-and-john-mackie\/","title":{"rendered":"Our final Picks for 2016: Elisabeth Sennitt Clough and John Mackie"},"content":{"rendered":"

We take one last lingering look back to 2016 with our final ‘picks’ for the year. Both Christmas poems, they affected us in very different ways. You chose Elisabeth Sennitt Clough’s painfully resonant ‘The Homewrecker and His Pun’ as our December 2016 Pick of the Month and, from a fine shortlist,\u00a0 it is a very worthy winner and is one of IS&T’s entries for the 2017 Forward Prizes for Poetry Best Single Poem Award.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Elisabeth was born in Ely and now lives in Norfolk with her husband and three children. Her pamphlet Glass<\/em> was a winner in the Paper Swans inaugural pamphlet competition and her debut collection, Sightings <\/em><\/a>(Pindrop Press<\/a>) was launched in Brussels on the 15th January. Her poems have appeared in The Rialto, Mslexia, Magma, Stand, I,S&T,<\/em> and The Cannons\u2019 Mouth<\/em>. www.elisabethsennittclough.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

She has asked that her \u00a310 ‘prize’ be donated to the NSPCC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Homewrecker and His Pun<\/strong><\/p>\n

She has high hopes for her white sauce
\nthis Christmas. The roux glistens
\nfrom the wash and slap of milk,
\nas she lightens it a ladle at a time.<\/p>\n

Her veins grow taut on her forearm
\nas she beats the buttery yellow mixture.
\nDroplets hit her skin and form small crusts
\namong archipelagos of freckles.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s positioned her radio by the stove
\nand between songs, the cartoon
\nher daughter\u2019s watching in the living room
\ncompetes with the early morning announcer:<\/p>\n

on the first Christmas Day, the angels
\npromised peace and good will on Earth.
\nShe downs another sherry, her hand
\nless steady on the wooden spoon.<\/p>\n

Her husband comes in, flushed from his walk,
\na sprig of mistletoe tucked in his cap.
\nThough his affair happened last Christmas,
\nher eyes stiffen: you whore of a man.<\/p>\n

He blames the drink for shifting her
\ninto the sickness of every woman
\nhe wants to leave behind. She doesn\u2019t make it
\nto dinner and their child is left to wonder why<\/p>\n

when she\u2019s seen the b\u00e9chamel burnt to flakes
\nin the pan, her father tells her don\u2019t go
\nin the bathroom because your mother\u2019s been
\nat the sauce and hurled it all over the floor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Voters comments included:<\/p>\n

Level of detail. And keeping us waiting for the pun, pointing up the desperation. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

[her] style is magical and gets me travelling every time I read her poems. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I like [it] for its lyricism and its emotional punch. The poem flows beautifully too…<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Deft and painful, beautifully worded. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

…a gloriously detailed depiction of domestic emotional turmoil at Christmastime.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

oh yes I remember it well typical christmas…
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I love its strength \u2013 the steady transition from control to loss thereof, and marbled with sexual innuendo. That’s a lot to juggle all the way through.<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, in addition to our December Pick we also wanted to have an Honorary one for the whole year. When Scottish poet and musician John Mackie died on 23rd December 2016, his poem ‘The 25th’ had already been chosen for IS&T ‘s ’12 Days Of Christmas’ series and was, appropriately, posted on Christmas Day. His support of the feature was total; his was the first ‘Like’ that our first ’12 Days Of…’ post on the 22nd received on Facebook.<\/p>\n

IS&T editor Helen Ivory had already put ‘The 25th’ forward as one of her choices for December’s Pick of the Month shortlist. In light of all this, then, we felt it would be right to honour John separately and have donated \u00a310, the usual ‘prize’ for our monthly Picks, to one of the charities he supported, Erskine: Caring for Veterans.<\/a><\/p>\n

Our condolences go out to his family and friends and, in his memory, we reprint his poem below:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 25th<\/strong><\/p>\n

How the hell
\ndo they do that
\nyear after year
\non the morning of
\nthis Decemberfest purloined
\nfrom Mithra;<\/p>\n

timed to perfection
\nbest bib and tucker
\nyellow beaks gleaming
\nposing for presents
\npromising nirvana
\nif I feed them now
\ntip tapping my conscience
\nand memory of you?<\/p>\n

it\u2019s a bit of a struggle
\nI am still in Jajouka
\nseeing off the goat boy
\nwith the screaming of pipes
\nor lost in the Latin
\nsome other God mumbled
\nto justify incense
\nand the rose window at Chartres<\/p>\n

but hey here you are
\nat my feast for one and his cat
\neven though it\u2019s been years
\nsince I laid you a place,
\nhow do you do that,
\nturn up
\nwithout smelling as bad
\nas you did
\nwhen we burned you
\nat Buckie on medical advice?<\/p>\n

the children are scattered
\nLondon, Bonn, Rome
\nthey remember you differently
\nas careless of them
\nas though your cancer was wilful \u2013
\nwas it so hun? I know that it forced me
\nto a series of metaphors
\nstill point, rock, tower of strength
\nI never wanted, am trying still to melt them
\nas much as I loved you please go away
\nand take your Christmas blackbirds
\nwith you<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Mackie<\/strong> lived in Aberdeenshire. He had been published in a range of media since the 1960s and you can find his more recent work in Scotia Extremis, Poetry Scotland, The Poets\u2019 Republic, Clear Poetry <\/em>and Spotify.<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We take one last lingering look back to 2016 with our final ‘picks’ for the year. Both Christmas poems, they affected us in very different ways. You chose Elisabeth Sennitt Clough’s painfully resonant ‘The Homewrecker and His Pun’ as our December 2016 Pick of the Month and, from a fine shortlist,\u00a0 it is a very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135,4,141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-poetry-picks","category-news","category-prizes-and-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13104"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23801,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13104\/revisions\/23801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}