The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘For Antoinette’ by David Cooke. The poet is a Gregory award winner and has published several poetry collections. His latest, After Hours, published by Cultured Llama, explores the lives of Irish migrants that settled in England in the first half of the 20th century. He also co-edits The High Window, an online quarterly review of poetry.  David has regularly posted poems on Write Out Loud for a number of years.  

 

What got you into writing poetry?

I started writing poems as a teenager when I discovered poets who sent a shiver down my spine. There have been many since but I got going with Keats, Auden, Hughes, Larkin, Gunn, and then, as I got more serious in my late teens, Heaney and various other Irish poets - maybe too many to mention.

 

Do you go to any open-mic nights?

Where I live in Grimsby there isn't much in the way of regular open mic gigs, but if there were I would certainly go. And when I've forced myself to travel further afield to promote a new book, say, I have always enjoyed the experience of reading my poems to an audience.

 

What’s your favourite poet/poem? 

That's a really tough one. Probably I'd have to stick with Heaney, but I also still really love Auden. Each appeals to a different side of my personality and they have both influenced the way I write. Both are masters of their art with instantly recognizable voices. One is more sensuous and the other more intellectual. I think Auden's poem 'The Shield of Achilles' takes some beating.

 

You're cast away on a desert island. What's your luxury?

That's another tricky one. I think it would have to be a book and a really big one to keep me going and one that I wouldn't get bored with. To go for the glaringly obvious, the King James Bible could be a contender, but I reckon the choice would change from day to day. I might be tempted by Proust. Been dipping into him for years!

 

 

 

FOR ANTOINETTE

by David Cooke 

 

On a wet afternoon in Wetherspoon’s

I came across her: gazing intently,

like a survivor from some belle époque

into the mirror of her make-up box;

and making herself presentable

for a night out and its chances,

she applied eye shadow and liner

with a practised hand, then blended

a blusher to the natural tint of her skin.

From time to time she paused,

deflating the banter, risqué and obvious,

of daytime regulars in a drawl

as rich as poured molasses.

She said her name was Antoinette –

mixed race, Belizean, and proud

of genes that shaped her cheek bones,

her hair as sleek as Jeanne Duval’s

and which she brushed and brushed,

her rhythm slow, insistent.