Issue 18: Kerrin Sharpe
(Tom Raworth Memorial)
Black Mountain memorial sonnets
1 in translation
from the shadow
of the orange
tree an emperor
moth lands on
Tom's working desk
her eye-spots
the crazy paving
of glazed stamped
blue her wings
a full-length
mirror the moon
distant view is
rural how the
Black Mountains sing
2 windmill
the mill leans
against its neighbours
the front door
a window of
sails a pair
of tulle wings
a small square
of blue Tom
writes to set
up a pose
with water and
stone even in
her sleep the
swan hears him
3 Brighton
the stone that
holds Tom's door
is a vine-covered
open heart
on the table
a rough arrangement
of jugs
a Jesuit
with a gun
walks past
the house
his dog writes
the washing instructions
for this plate in Spanish
4 too late for whistling
and his claws
became leaves
his feathers
the sun
his colour
the moon
his wonder
the sand
of sky
his beak
the night
this day
his eyes
are branches
Kerrin P. Sharpe’s first book three days in a wishing well was published by Victoria University Press in 2012. A group of her poems also appeared in 2013 in the UK publication Oxford Poets 13 (Carcanet). A second book there’s a medical name for this was published by Victoria University Press in 2014. Her third collection of poems, rabbit rabbit, written with the assistance of a Creative New Zealand grant, was published in July 2016, again by Victoria University Press. Kerrin has completed a fourth collection of poems, louder, which is currently with her publisher, Victoria University Press. Kerrin lives in Christchurch New Zealand and as well as writing herself, also teaches and mentors in creative writing.
