Andrew Taylor
A Poetics of Absence
At night I think of you, I haven't forgotten.
Is blossom memorial enough?
There is a need for change, I feel that need
self-definition is the hardest part
At the moment of crisis, phones shift
from being mere tools of convenience.
They begin to create a poetry of unease.
Is this a poetry of unease?
The excitement is in producing the unknown.
The city seduces
the proximity of memory
Communication with oneself is essential
The field of the poet's experience was democratized
to a degree that levelled it to one enormous field of
closely observed particulars – both physical and mental –
The present is being eaten by the past
belief and proximity is connected closely
From the heart
despite cliché
a fear of drowning
Poetics steals from anywhere
A distracted geography
home from distance
you were so beautiful
from 'Catalf':
Gone my friend grief will make her heart burst
Can we go on like this with our hearts tied to the land?
There is no comfort in this world that's why I love you today
Must you be on your way?
There are too many ghosts of the past in my life living with me
Communication the everyday
broken soul loss heartache
no desire to win competitions
a discourse of the normal with clarity
reader's desire poet's intention
creation and interpretation
dialogue with myself
irrelevance of intention
The canvas spotted with paint and glitter: It was a bad painting and it's getting better
Memory is key no matter how old or recent
Loss is key
from 'Poetry and Skin Cream':
When the fog lifts and you walk away
I hope that you’ll glance over your shoulder
and wave from the built up distance
from 'Catalf':
Things will never be the same
again light will angle differently
cold will eat summer
How things will be after event
how things will sit
Come to me once more my love
A sense of passing with hope
Writing the self the self is writing
If I knew there was any other way to you
I'd walk sand and miles any other way get close to you
and everything I have to say has probably been said many better ways
Sometimes I have you in my head and loving with you I am happy
I think of things to say to you of evenings we spent in another place
I sit alone and take care of my head all the feelings that I have in front of me
Changes that we could have made all the things we could have done together
The commonality of language. A woman in Chile, and a man
in Manhattan can read poetry from Liverpool
Is the ultimate poetry created out of personal pain?
Writing is a way to trace hunger and hunger is nothing if not a void
Is this a poetry of experience? One of personal anguish?
Join images as they are joined in the mind: only thus can two images connect like wires and spark
Buildings absorb memories they are stored
upon return these memories come alive
Photographs recharge bring closer to mind events
After a death it is common practice to gather photographs
'You Should Gather the Photographs Together':
Back to her streets and familiarity: 1950s Gladys,
Ocean Fleets, buildings in need of smog damaged
sand blast.
Camels on the Mersey. Elephants at Lime Street.
Hanker for past. A purer city. Billboards painted
on walls: ‘Phillips and Charles’ viewed from Costa’s
first floor window.
In parkland near Port Sunlight, a fallen tree is chopped
ready for firewood.
She consumes me, desire to return to her welcoming arms.
Events imagined or real events as told?
It's odd that I can walk streets
that my Aunty walked when she was young
Do her memories interfere with mine? The city is never far from mind
Objects become muses of memory
The creation of the unknown
Do dreams seep into walls?
The morning chimney light
proof of existence
Do you remember mornings shared?
Do you understand my language?
Is it about communication or the ability to communicate?
We are born into language but a language not our own
Through acquisition we share
a common language
shared words shared meaning
A walk leads to sadness back to
a garden and
Summer's Arc of Sun:
Red brick lit from light summer's arc – of sun
rook sat on chimney stack
peaceful gaze shattered by swallow's
fighter plane attack, rook shifts
he played amongst the lavender
like velvet to be coaxed
I catch the essence
that lingers
How I wish you were here with me now
It is in the lines […] it is in the coldness of Cathedrals
The power to create the power to invent
Technique over content content over technique
poets are writing machines
Be open to the poem's approach
let it wash over you sense its inspiration
An active compliance the poem is the poem
Accept the lineage
One of the limits of inspiration may be its very spontaneity
Revisiting may be painful but productive
words appear different upon reflection
The authenticity is in the spontaneity – the spark of an idea
and the generative notion of poetics
the poetics of pain
4 Real
Dust settles on papers stacked
Poems are understood when they are achieved
Mourning works a terrible logic. It is a monster, like Time, and akin to Death — perhaps a younger sibling — that devours and rebuilds only to devour again. For that, it is like poetry as well. Poetry is itself another monster, a murmur, as some philosophers would have it, between worlds, if not between the living and the dead, than between the possibilities of each
Perhaps it is anticipation
like journeys along the Welsh coast
A poetics of absence
where clouds form patterns on grass
Can the reader share in the experience?
A remnant of a mark on the forearm
a reminder
like not washing the towel like sitting alone
on the stairs like putting the red wrap on the bed
as a reminder
Do these words detach at birth and go about the world without control?
Poem as artefact as poetics
How quickly the dead are gone into us, sealed away into their only after-life, the one of our memory, the echo of laughter shared, the quiet bonds and history of friendship that slips discreetly beyond life and death
like realising this is permanent
from 'Conker':
The trees are losing their leaves
That goodness via tablet form
runs through those scarred veins
pumped slow
The tarmac catches the afternoon light
Three movements to fade
a handshake a kiss a wave
fades to white
You were my absence.
Wherever I breathed, you found me
lying in the word
that spoke its way back
to this place
Connect through text
inconceivable to be without
such facility
futility in understanding
two worlds collide
the before the after
Build a soundtrack
artefacts possessions
what was yours is now mine
the authority of authorship
poetry should be written any way it chooses
Sadness and joy are never separate
Early morning
and late at night
the spirit of silence
before the hidden track
Contemplation during
creative lull
Is poetry love's labour?
I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature
Poetics is ethical - it is worded beyond a man's lifetime
to be inhabited
and understood
gathered as memento
the sound of an ice-cream
van merges with birdsong
another era an interval
given to history
Afternoon spent passing
shared finality
evening away lost to time
padding to quietness
reminder behind
left amongst the everyday
routine uninterrupted
shaped by presence and absence
Remembering brings the emptiness, the acutely painful awareness of irreparable loss.
from 'How Animals Work':
this nature of happiness
an extension of adequacy
tolerable and bearable
search the heart of the other
Every time I see the grave, I get that empty feeling where something was, and isn't anymore, and it will never be again.
Writing a new desk a new
location a new approach
of difficulty
blinds study of landscape
this letter of mourning
an undisclosed recipient
'spots of time'
The city seduces still
the proximity of memory
A plot of permanence
mosaic of memories
you remain
I cannot forget
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool (UK) born poet, three collections published to-date, co-editor of erbacce, completing a PhD in poetry and poetics at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, UK. The Poetics of Absence comes from his PhD thesis.
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A Poetics of Absence
At night I think of you, I haven't forgotten.
Is blossom memorial enough?
There is a need for change, I feel that need
self-definition is the hardest part
At the moment of crisis, phones shift
from being mere tools of convenience.
They begin to create a poetry of unease.
Is this a poetry of unease?
The excitement is in producing the unknown.
The city seduces
the proximity of memory
Communication with oneself is essential
The field of the poet's experience was democratized
to a degree that levelled it to one enormous field of
closely observed particulars – both physical and mental –
The present is being eaten by the past
belief and proximity is connected closely
From the heart
despite cliché
a fear of drowning
Poetics steals from anywhere
A distracted geography
home from distance
you were so beautiful
from 'Catalf':
Gone my friend grief will make her heart burst
Can we go on like this with our hearts tied to the land?
There is no comfort in this world that's why I love you today
Must you be on your way?
There are too many ghosts of the past in my life living with me
Communication the everyday
broken soul loss heartache
no desire to win competitions
a discourse of the normal with clarity
reader's desire poet's intention
creation and interpretation
dialogue with myself
irrelevance of intention
The canvas spotted with paint and glitter: It was a bad painting and it's getting better
Memory is key no matter how old or recent
Loss is key
from 'Poetry and Skin Cream':
When the fog lifts and you walk away
I hope that you’ll glance over your shoulder
and wave from the built up distance
from 'Catalf':
Things will never be the same
again light will angle differently
cold will eat summer
How things will be after event
how things will sit
Come to me once more my love
A sense of passing with hope
Writing the self the self is writing
If I knew there was any other way to you
I'd walk sand and miles any other way get close to you
and everything I have to say has probably been said many better ways
Sometimes I have you in my head and loving with you I am happy
I think of things to say to you of evenings we spent in another place
I sit alone and take care of my head all the feelings that I have in front of me
Changes that we could have made all the things we could have done together
The commonality of language. A woman in Chile, and a man
in Manhattan can read poetry from Liverpool
Is the ultimate poetry created out of personal pain?
Writing is a way to trace hunger and hunger is nothing if not a void
Is this a poetry of experience? One of personal anguish?
Join images as they are joined in the mind: only thus can two images connect like wires and spark
Buildings absorb memories they are stored
upon return these memories come alive
Photographs recharge bring closer to mind events
After a death it is common practice to gather photographs
'You Should Gather the Photographs Together':
Back to her streets and familiarity: 1950s Gladys,
Ocean Fleets, buildings in need of smog damaged
sand blast.
Camels on the Mersey. Elephants at Lime Street.
Hanker for past. A purer city. Billboards painted
on walls: ‘Phillips and Charles’ viewed from Costa’s
first floor window.
In parkland near Port Sunlight, a fallen tree is chopped
ready for firewood.
She consumes me, desire to return to her welcoming arms.
Events imagined or real events as told?
It's odd that I can walk streets
that my Aunty walked when she was young
Do her memories interfere with mine? The city is never far from mind
Objects become muses of memory
The creation of the unknown
Do dreams seep into walls?
The morning chimney light
proof of existence
Do you remember mornings shared?
Do you understand my language?
Is it about communication or the ability to communicate?
We are born into language but a language not our own
Through acquisition we share
a common language
shared words shared meaning
A walk leads to sadness back to
a garden and
Summer's Arc of Sun:
Red brick lit from light summer's arc – of sun
rook sat on chimney stack
peaceful gaze shattered by swallow's
fighter plane attack, rook shifts
he played amongst the lavender
like velvet to be coaxed
I catch the essence
that lingers
How I wish you were here with me now
It is in the lines […] it is in the coldness of Cathedrals
The power to create the power to invent
Technique over content content over technique
poets are writing machines
Be open to the poem's approach
let it wash over you sense its inspiration
An active compliance the poem is the poem
Accept the lineage
One of the limits of inspiration may be its very spontaneity
Revisiting may be painful but productive
words appear different upon reflection
The authenticity is in the spontaneity – the spark of an idea
and the generative notion of poetics
the poetics of pain
4 Real
Dust settles on papers stacked
Poems are understood when they are achieved
Mourning works a terrible logic. It is a monster, like Time, and akin to Death — perhaps a younger sibling — that devours and rebuilds only to devour again. For that, it is like poetry as well. Poetry is itself another monster, a murmur, as some philosophers would have it, between worlds, if not between the living and the dead, than between the possibilities of each
Perhaps it is anticipation
like journeys along the Welsh coast
A poetics of absence
where clouds form patterns on grass
Can the reader share in the experience?
A remnant of a mark on the forearm
a reminder
like not washing the towel like sitting alone
on the stairs like putting the red wrap on the bed
as a reminder
Do these words detach at birth and go about the world without control?
Poem as artefact as poetics
How quickly the dead are gone into us, sealed away into their only after-life, the one of our memory, the echo of laughter shared, the quiet bonds and history of friendship that slips discreetly beyond life and death
like realising this is permanent
from 'Conker':
The trees are losing their leaves
That goodness via tablet form
runs through those scarred veins
pumped slow
The tarmac catches the afternoon light
Three movements to fade
a handshake a kiss a wave
fades to white
You were my absence.
Wherever I breathed, you found me
lying in the word
that spoke its way back
to this place
Connect through text
inconceivable to be without
such facility
futility in understanding
two worlds collide
the before the after
Build a soundtrack
artefacts possessions
what was yours is now mine
the authority of authorship
poetry should be written any way it chooses
Sadness and joy are never separate
Early morning
and late at night
the spirit of silence
before the hidden track
Contemplation during
creative lull
Is poetry love's labour?
I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature
Poetics is ethical - it is worded beyond a man's lifetime
to be inhabited
and understood
gathered as memento
the sound of an ice-cream
van merges with birdsong
another era an interval
given to history
Afternoon spent passing
shared finality
evening away lost to time
padding to quietness
reminder behind
left amongst the everyday
routine uninterrupted
shaped by presence and absence
Remembering brings the emptiness, the acutely painful awareness of irreparable loss.
from 'How Animals Work':
this nature of happiness
an extension of adequacy
tolerable and bearable
search the heart of the other
Every time I see the grave, I get that empty feeling where something was, and isn't anymore, and it will never be again.
Writing a new desk a new
location a new approach
of difficulty
blinds study of landscape
this letter of mourning
an undisclosed recipient
'spots of time'
The city seduces still
the proximity of memory
A plot of permanence
mosaic of memories
you remain
I cannot forget
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool (UK) born poet, three collections published to-date, co-editor of erbacce, completing a PhD in poetry and poetics at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, UK. The Poetics of Absence comes from his PhD thesis.
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