Sea Creature Regrows Entire Body

Elaine Beckett

• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781912565573
• eBook ISBN: 9781912565955
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

The title of Elaine Beckett's debut collection suggests a process of unstoppable change. Moments of personal and global crisis are juxtaposed, and examined from different perspectives so that her poems reveal how humanity is in a constant state of flux. This is ambitious work, acute in its commitment to the truth of lived experience. Beckett's watch-maker's eye for detail, impeccable ear, and intricate use of poetic form, reveal truths with a compassion that moves her work way beyond the confessional. Arranged in seven short sequences, that spiral round themes of loss, betrayal, delight and re-birth, this is a beautifully wrought collection; at times hard hitting and painful, yet funny and moving, and always surprising.

' Occasionally a poet comes along pretty much fully formed. That is what I felt when I first read Elaine Beckett's poems. Not only her voice - brazen, tender, angry and funny - but how it's held in structures of great poise and resonance.

Absurd and revelatory, sometimes painful, these poems, steeped in a dark, ironic lyricism, are to be read and read again.'

– Greta Stoddart

Debut collection from Faber New Poets 13 author Elaine Beckett, whose Covid related poem Thursday went viral recently after being published in poetry review...
Thursday When the dusk comes in as quiet as this
as low as this, as dense as this,! like your whole world has gone back to where it began and you wonder how you got into this mess the kind of mess you cannot see an end to as if it may already have ended very badly and all you can hear is the sound of your own name spoken deep inside your own head, it is probably best to step back from whatever kind of brink you imagine you have reached and think about something else, something small and practical like boiling an egg.

Finishing the Peanuts

is the start of a sentence by Sylvia Plath

that somebody posted on Twitter.

Wonder how she’d feel about an extract

from her diary being used by a stranger

to wave at the world?

I’ve no idea;

finishing the peanuts sounds so complete,

like a finely knitted twinset

with a rise and falling rhythm to it

like a swallowing,

before its quiet journey forward to

we brought in a little paper bag. . .

how beautiful is that,

and when you put them together

finishing the peanuts we brought in a little paper bag. . .

god, that’s beautiful.

I can almost sense the peanuts on my tongue;

small and darkly roasted, slightly greasy, slightly salt

or maybe plain with frilly outer skins

but maybe not;

maybe hidden softly in their shells.

Imagine Sylvia shelling nuts in Regents Park

or round the back of St Marks

where even now there’s a slight grimy feeling

especially in October,

with the peacocks squawking

behind the sealed-off entrance to the zoo.

And then there’s the brought –

did she mean they brought them with them

in the little paper bag?

getting out of a car? or maybe she meant

they finished the nuts while bringing them into

where –

perhaps she wrote ‘bought’

and the person who copied it added an ‘r’

does ‘brought’ mean ‘bought’ in American

I’d kind of like to know,

and also who exactly is the we

that brought them in that little paper bag,

or brought them into the place

which they may or may not have visited

or maybe lived in, was it she and Ted ?

It is probably sexist to bring Ted in at all,

to glamourise her with the addition of Ted

which she probably wouldn’t have wanted,

or maybe she did,

depending on the state of their relationship

if this was their relationship.

What if the peanuts were still in their shells

where were they left?

inside the bag? I can’t really see her screwing it up

and dropping it somewhere, or leaving it

for someone else to manage

inside the place they may, or may not have been

in the process of entering

I like to think they were hot little peanuts,

bought from a peanut seller somewhere cold and

quite rainy and of course I could look it up,

stop this small investigation like you can look

everything up, find any answer that you want.

There are so many questions that don’t need

answering, don’t need to be snapped-of,

finished by a quick Google search

that prevents all wondering, all imagining

because the next part of her sentence

is such a delight:

and the cellophane parcel of . . .

so: finishing the peanuts we brought in a little paper bag

and the cellophane parcel of . . .

perhaps it’s because someone called me out once

for using the word cellophane that I so adore it here;

imagine the sound of a flashy little crinkly parcel

containing what? I love her surprise:

dried figs. . .

so: finishing the peanuts we brought

in a little paper bag

and the cellophane parcel of dried figs . . .

no need to find out what comes next.

Sylvia liked the word cellophane,

she ate peanuts from a little paper bag.

Letter from Lola

‘Lola de Valence’ by Edouard Manet

Paris, 1861

Sir,

Had you been told never to touch the oranges growing in

your mother’s courtyard, long for sangria that can only

be made on days when tomatoes turn golden,

imagine a time when your father wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Thursday
• To Leave You Now
• Sea Creature Regrows Entire Body
• American People
• Stupor
• Democracy is Coming
• Other Country
• Dropping Shoe
• Calais, or Part of me is at the Opera
• Her Way with Avocados
• Rehearsal for a Night-time Scene with Thunder
• Zabriskie Point
• Instructions
• Two Figures on a Bridge
• Sometimes
• A Mess of Strangers
• Certificate
• Kitty and Frank
• After the War
• Falling
• Doll
• Baby Shawl
• Tortoise
• Green Suitcase
• Appoggiatura
• Draft Email
• Dear Joni
• Norfolk Winter ‘72
• Last Visible Dog
• That Evening
• The Woman Who Cries
• Moving On
• Flowers from Mrs Yeats
• Finishing the Peanuts
• Letter from Lola
• Des Pas sur la Neige
• Bodhisattva
• Weekend
• Tax Return
• A Softness
• A Few Small Deceits
• After Yesterday
• How the Watchmaker Talks to Herself
• Astonishing Sonatas
• This Rush of Love
• Garden
• Zephyr
• Not Forgetting
• Cemetery
• Two Gorillas
• There’s a Certain Type of Driving
• Killer Whale
• So Now
• 2084
• Lemons
• Acknowledgements
• About Verve Poetry Press