Rookie

Selected Poems

Caroline Bird

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781800171862
• eBook ISBN:
  9781800171879
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

A formidable collection from a singular voice in British poetry.

Caroline Bird, Forward Prize winner and one of Carcanet's most popular poets, presents a selection of her best work from the past two decades. Starting with Looking through Letterboxes written when she was just fifteen, this collection showcases her startling instinct for metaphor and courageous exploration of complex subjects.

Rookie offers a journey through Bird's energetic and compelling voice, exploring themes of relationships, identity, and modern life with humor and introspection. This collection is perfect for readers of contemporary poetry, students of literature, and anyone seeking innovative and thought-provoking verse. Experience the linguistic energy and bitterly funny insights that have made Caroline Bird a standout voice in the poetry world.

137138

FROM ‘THE AIR YEAR’ (2020)

139

PRIMITIVE HEART

You are the size of an orange seed and

developing a heart. Same, baby, same.

Your pre-heart is made of two tubes

which must fuse together now into one

primitive structure. Tell me about it.

By Friday your neural groove will herald

the beginning of your brain. Snap.

I’m a chickpea, bud, a tadpole,

pre-me. Within a week you’ll double

in scope. I can’t compete with that level

of personal growth. You’ll outdo me, pip.

I’m unfused. Sketchy. Two heart strings

fumbling to combine. I’m not supposed to

dread completion, baby, am I? Yours nor mine.

140

THE GROUND

You land on a ridge, six-feet down the cliff

and believe you have fallen from the dread

summit and survived, you think,

this is the ground.

until you notice the larks passing at eye-level,

drop a cufflink and fall

fifty-feet into the open palm of another ridge,

deeper in, scratched, clothes torn,

you’ve lost a shoe but you think

this is the ground,

I can bake that lasagne now

till a kite gets snagged in your hair,

your feet meet a plunging carpet

now you’re hanging by your necklace

from a branch thinking

this is the ground,

let’s buy a puppy

as you sit in your bracken chair,

as you fall in your chair like a lopped flower head

face-planting – Yes! Ground! – in a tree,

wind-burnt from momentum, whip-

lashed by your own screams, oops, then oops,

oops, straddling a lamp-post, a pillar, a shed, each time

believing this is the ground, believing

you’ve survived, falling, landing, falling out,

who knows how long you’ve been travelling

down this thing, incrementally, held in the loosening-

tightening fist of a giant with a featureless face.

Thud. At last

I can put up that shelf. Make that baby.

You lie and let your bones heal, looking up 141

at the distance, experiencing plateau

for the first time, cold, hard, real, the opposite

of air. You shake like a prodigal astronaut.

I could build a house on this, you think,

staggering off.

142

SANITY

I do kind gestures. Remove my appendix.

I put my ear to a flat shell and – nothing.

I play the lottery ironically. Get married.

Have a smear test. I put my ear to the beak

of a dead bird – nothing. I grow wisdom

teeth. Jog. I pick up a toddler’s telephone,

Hello? – No answer. I change a light bulb

on my own. Organise a large party. Hire

a clown. Attend a four day stone-walling

course. Have a baby. Stop eating Coco-Pops.

I put my ear right up to the slack and gaping

bonnet of a daffodil – . Get divorced. Floss.

Describe a younger person’s music taste as

‘just noise’. Enjoy perusing a garden centre.

Sit in a pub without drinking. I stand at the

lip of a pouting valley – SPEAK TO ME!

My echo plagiarises. I land a real love plus

two real cats. I never meet the talking bird

again. Or the yawning hole. The panther

of purple wisps who prowls inside the air.

I change nappies. Donate my eggs. Learn

a profound lesson about sac...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Contents
• From ‘LOOKING THROUGH LETTERBOXES’ (2002)
• From ‘TROUBLE CAME TO THE TURNIP’ (2006)
• From ‘WATERING CAN’ (2009)
• From ‘THE HAT-STAND UNION’ (2012)
• From ‘IN THESE DAYS OF PROHIBITION’ (2017)
• From ‘THE AIR YEAR’ (2020)
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright