Ugly Bird

Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith

• Publisher: The New Poets List
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781912196586
• eBook ISBN: 9781912196593
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Ugly Bird is bolshy and funny and unapologetic. With subjects ranging from public nudity and polyamorous dunnocks to women who run with wolves, these tender poems appreciate human relationships and the natural world, without shying away from difficult conversations around toxic masculinity and mental health. Ugly Bird is tough enough to stand its ground and look you in the eye: 'I'm not perfect, and in no way do I want to be.'

It’s Okay to Break

After Nikita Gill and Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Everything does: trees grow tired and give up,

drop their heavy boughs and watch the weight

they strained against shrivel up into confetti.

Clouds lurch, moan and split apart, let the rain

fall through. The earth is broken up by rivers –

chiselled and beaten into V-shaped valleys,

spurs like the jags on a zip. Cliffs are broken

and hollowed out into caves. Waves break

and they’re beautiful. Their slow, emphatic

headbang. The white fireworks, the bellow

and hiss, have captivated artists for centuries.

The world is made of breaking, growing things:

buds sprout from naked branches, seeds break

to let out green shoots, clouds break to let in the sun.

Waves calm. La Loba gathers up broken pieces,

discarded entrails, and sings life into them:

and that is when the rib bones and leg bones begin

to flesh out, and the creature becomes furred.

La Loba sings some more and more of the creature

comes into being; its tail curls upward, shaggy and strong.

And still La Loba sings so deeply that the floor

of the desert shakes, and as she sings, the wolf

opens its eyes, leaps up, and runs away

down the canyon. Somewhere in its running,

whether by the speed or by splashing its

way into a river, or by a ray of sunlight

or moonlight hitting it right in its side,

the wolf is suddenly transformed into

a laughing woman who runs free towards

the horizon. And you, you are made up

of the same things that make up the waves

and the valleys, the trees, the dismantled skeleton

in the desert waiting to be found.

So break down, fall apart, crumble.

Let the shoots push through.

Let the wolf leap out.

Note: Lines in italic are taken from Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

No One Knows Care as Much as Her Hands Do

She folds clothes like they’re made of butterfly wings,

stroking out the creases with the lightest press of her palm,

lining up the hems with the precision of an architect.

She spreads care i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• I Want to Stand Naked in the School Hall
• Cappuccinos
• Dunnock
• Mourning
• Ruben’s Grin
• Painting People
• Meritocracy
• It’s Okay to Break
• No One Knows Care as Much as Her Hands Do
• Gifts from the Woods
• The Moon Stripping
• Cat
• Little Boy on the Train
• Reading us The Hobbit
• Dad
• On Human Touch
• Seagull
• I’ve Seen It All
• Acknowledgements