Plastiglomerate

Tim Cresswell

• Publisher: Penned in the Margins
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781908058768
• eBook ISBN: 9781908058874
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

The third in a trilogy by acclaimed poet-geographer Tim Cresswell, Plastiglomerate charts the relentless impact of mankind on the environment. The central poem recycles the British folk ballad 'The Twa Magicians' to make a magnificent, troubling ecological protest song. From plastic pollution and wrecked vessels to forest fires and melting icecaps, Cresswell writes vital, urgent poetry for the Anthropocene age.

His earlier collection Fence has been described by Rob McFarlane as 'A strange and spectral volume, born of a fence that separates nowhere from the now and here, deep in the high Arctic.'

The Two Magicians

after Child Ballad 44: ‘The Twa Magicians’

The lady stands in her bower door,

As straight as willow wand;

The blacksmith stood a little forebye,

Wi hammer in his hand.

‘Weel may ye dress ye, lady fair,

Into your robes o red;

Before the morn at this same time,

I’ll gain your maidenhead.’

’

I’d rather I were dead and gone,

And my body laid in grave,

Ere a rusty stock o coal-black smith

My maidenhead shoud have.’

then she became a turtle dove

purring in the linden

and he became another

strutting swelling

whistling his wings rising

to pair with her

then a hare

on the hill

standing twitching evening air

mad as anything

ready to box

and he became a greyhound

sprung from his master’s side

ears swept

sinews straining

then a gay grey mare

standing in the slack

and he became a saddle

and sat upon her back

then queen bee

attended by armies

kissing clover

massing in meadows

he became monoculture mites

the absence of orchids

trucks of hives on the highway

fruit farms in the valley

then she became peregrine

swooping from her scrape

stationary

then falling

stone

a shooting star you thought you saw

lightning

arrow

he became leather hood for manning

strong jesses

bells

he became endocrine disruptor

persistent organic pollutant

with lipophilic properties

he became hydrophobic

but soluble in fats

colourless

tasteless

odourless mostly

he became crystalline

travelled under many names

Anofex Cezarex Chlorophenothane Clofenotane

Dicophane Dinocide Gesarol Guesapon

Guesarol Gyron Ixodex

Neocid Neocidol

and Zerdane

then the moor

purple blush of heather

paths tracing habits

and heft of sheep

the common land

bound only

by the circling sky

and he became

An Act for the better Cultivation, Improvement, and Regulation of the Common Arable Fields, Wastes and Commons of Pasture in this Kingdom

and said

... all the tillage or arable lands lying in the said open or common fields shall be ordered, fenced, cultivated and improved in such manner by the respective occupiers thereof, and shall be kept, ordered and continued in such course of husbandry, and be cultivated under such rules, regulations and restrictions...

Etc.

then grey whale with her enormous hunger sieving oceans

luminous lives

jiggering

suspended

and he became a multitude

duct tape

duct tape

electrical tape

fabric – miscellaneous

fabric – miscellaneous

fabric – miscellaneous

fabric – miscellaneous

fabric – miscellaneous

fab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Tim Cresswell
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Rialto Beach
• Plastiglomerate
• Nest Site Fidelity
• Scale
• Car Plant
• Haul Out
• In a Station of the Underground
• The Two Magicians
• A Theory of Migration
• Heathrow
• Legend
• In Brookline, Massachusetts, I learn a new route
• Newfoundland
• Beached
• Fugitive Pigments
• Tremor
• Dendrochronology
• Spoil
• Erratic
• Friendly Floatees / Tripadvisor
• What I said was
• In the Natural History Museum
• Harvest
• Fulgurites
• Flaws
• Footfall
• Blues for Lost Birds
• Notes