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 | Yorkshire Times A Voice of the Free Press |
Steve Whitaker
Features Writer
@stevewhitaker1.bsky.social
4:00 AM 31st March 2022
arts
Poem Of The Week: 'Editing' By Anastasia Taylor-Lind
Image courtesy of Pixabay
Editing
An October morning before a grey soft-box dawn.
Sit at the computer, coffee, cigarette.
Flip steadily through ten thousand frames until
you find yourself reflected in a woman’s eyes,
your figure caught in the catch-light of her cornea.
There she is – pastel pink shalwar kameez,
one fly resting on the embroidered trim.
After walking for eight days to reach the border
here she is, looking up into your white face
.An October morning before a grey soft-box dawn.
Sit at the computer, coffee, cigarette.
Flip steadily through ten thousand frames until
you find yourself reflected in a woman’s eyes,
your figure caught in the catch-light of her cornea.
There she is – pastel pink shalwar kameez,
one fly resting on the embroidered trim.
After walking for eight days to reach the border
here she is, looking up into your white face
The power of photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s beautifully measured poem is reinforced by the surprise of its apprehension. A routine editorial process suddenly falls upon a half-forgotten image whose meaning is yielded in the totem of detail: the pastel pink shalwar kameez and the single fly resting on its trim invest the shot with a precise chromatic mirror to the ravages of hope in a time of endurance.
For the single frame is also a frame of reference. The narrator’s reflection, perceived in an alliterative burst of ‘catch-light’ in the refugee’s cornea, draws poet and journalist into an unspoken sororal bond with the woman, whose existence now transcends the rectilinear bounds of the photo, to be liberated in the punctum of commemoration.
Taylor-Lind’s lucent, affecting final lines think the meeting at the border into the present, remind her audience that the plight of the woman is no less than that of a tragic archetype.
For the single frame is also a frame of reference. The narrator’s reflection, perceived in an alliterative burst of ‘catch-light’ in the refugee’s cornea, draws poet and journalist into an unspoken sororal bond with the woman, whose existence now transcends the rectilinear bounds of the photo, to be liberated in the punctum of commemoration.
Taylor-Lind’s lucent, affecting final lines think the meeting at the border into the present, remind her audience that the plight of the woman is no less than that of a tragic archetype.
'Editing' is taken from One Language, published by Smith|Doorstop. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Poetry Business.
More information here: https://poetrybusiness.co.uk/product/one-language/