Anna Woodford
Anna Woodford lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her pamphlet
Trailer (Five Leaves, 2007), a sequence of poems about
her Eastern European family history, was a Poetry Book
Society Choice.
She has received an Eric Gregory Award, an Arvon/Jerwood
Apprenticeship, a Hawthornden Fellowship and a residency
at the Blue Mountain Center (New York). Her poems and
reviews have appeared in many magazines and anthologies
including Poetry Ireland Review, TLS, Rialto and Poetry
London. She teaches creative writing at Newcastle University,
where she has recently completed a PhD on the poetry
of Sharon Olds. She also teaches at Sunderland University
and for the Open University. She has completed poetry
residencies at The Tyne & Wear Fire Service, Durham
Cathedral and Alnwick Garden. She runs a monthly poetry
reading group in Newcastle with the poet Linda France.
Party Piece
My mother is taking a turn
in my killer heels
— they could topple
her —
the
old idol of her body
sways like a Madonna
shouldered
out of a Spanish cathedral.
She breaks into a song,
the
crown of her voice
slipped after wine
and years
at
the centre of this living room:
it is my brother’s living room
this new year and
my mother
is getting carried away. I raise a glass
at her gathering.
Now I can’t hold her
back or follow her.
Feral
Their bodies are unbroken, with scant fur and jaded
eyes.
They use the gravestones
like easy chairs.
A collecting tin provides for them:
chained to its
post, it swallows rain and small coins.
When
I kneel over the remains
of
the poet, something nudges the
lowered
defence of my back.
Their territory extends from the wrought gates of this
cemetery
to the broken heart of the
Coliseum
and all the resting-places in-between:
the squares
and roof-tops and unmarked outhouses.
© 2008
Salt Publishing Limited 
