Contemporary Poetry

Mark Halliday: I'm slightly embarrassed by how long it took me to get serious as a poet. I reached nearly the end of my twenties without committing myself to writing the best poems I could write, by which I mean poems that tried hard to express my deepest complexes of feeling and perception. Some poets seem to grow up in this way by the age of 25, or even younger. But I spent most of my twenties being very energetic and prolific, but only half-serious.

The factory is gone, the presses with it, the workers-of course-, even the rats. All that's left are these few words without rhythm or breath, fading now before your eyes.

I can imagine someone who found these fields unbearable, who climbed the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust, cracking the brittle weeds underfoot, wishing a few more trees for shade.

There's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away.