{"id":28344,"date":"2015-03-03T09:31:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T20:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28344"},"modified":"2015-03-03T09:31:58","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T20:31:58","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-focusing-on-tim-jones-angela-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/03\/03\/the-tuesday-poem-focusing-on-tim-jones-angela-carter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: Focusing On Tim Jones & “Angela Carter”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angela Carter<\/strong><\/p>\n

And then your portrait on the back<\/p>\n

so neutral and complete<\/p>\n

standing full-length<\/p>\n

posed I don\u2019t remember where.<\/p>\n

Eyes sky black<\/p>\n

you stood unsmiling<\/p>\n

suggesting there were realer worlds within.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your books dealt much in mirrors<\/p>\n

which might have led me to suppose<\/p>\n

that you were one yourself<\/p>\n

and I\u2019d step through the flimsy sheet<\/p>\n

that held you to your words<\/p>\n

and turn and, face inside your face,<\/p>\n

watch the empty space where I had been.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Tim Jones<\/p>\n

Published in Boat People<\/strong>, <\/em>HeadworX, 2008. Reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

I first featured Tim’s Angela Carter<\/em> in a 2013 series on ekphrastic poems — works that respond to a work of art.<\/p>\n

As well as loving the poem, I also enjoyed Tim’s commentary, “speaking” to the poem:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger, I went through phases of intensively reading the entire oeuvre \u2013 or as much of the oeuvre as I could lay my hands on \u2013 of specific authors.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

One such author was Angela Carter (1940-1992), who is probably now best known for her late novel Night at the Circus, but whose earlier novels veered closer to science fiction. At a time when I was finding out about feminism, I found Angela Carter\u2019s strongly but unconventionally feminist fiction both fascinating and challenging. The photo that made such an impression on me was on the back cover of The Passion of New Eve, her 1977 science fiction novel (though \u201cscience fiction\u201d is a pale term to use to describe Carter\u2019s lush, highly symbolic fiction) \u2013 and the poem reflects my fascination with the questions of masculine and feminine identity found both in this novel and throughout Carter\u2019s fiction.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I get the impression that Angela Carter\u2019s fiction isn\u2019t as well known or widely read twenty years after her death as it deserves to me. If you\u2019d like to know more about her and her work, check out this Scriptorium profile of her<\/span><\/a> by Jeff VanderMeer, or this shorter 2006 profile in the Independent (UK)<\/a>.<\/span>“<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I have very much enjoyed focusing on Tim’s poetry again over the past few weeks. If you haven’t already had the chance to check the poems out, just click on:<\/p>\n

The First Artist On Mars<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Thinning<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The stars, Natasha<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Or visit his website: Books In The Trees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"timjones\"<\/a>About The Poet:<\/h3>\n

Tim Jones is a New Zealand poet, author and editor who was awarded both the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature and a Sir Julius Vogel Award in 2010. His latest book, co-edited with PS Cottier, is The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry<\/em><\/strong> (2014).<\/p>\n

For more, see http:\/\/timjonesbooks.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angela Carter And then your portrait on the back so neutral and complete standing full-length posed I don\u2019t remember where. Eyes sky black you stood unsmiling suggesting there were realer worlds within.   Your books dealt much in mirrors which might have led me to suppose that you were one yourself and I\u2019d step through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28344"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28347,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28344\/revisions\/28347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}