Susan Utting
Peterloo Poetry Prize winner, Susan was selected for the Times newspaper's best love poem prize
in February 2010. Her most recent collection, Houses Without Walls, (Two Rivers Press) was
featured in the Independent on Sunday and has been widely and warmly reviewed, with a poem from
the collection included in the best single poem category of the Forward Book of Poetry 2007.
“Her poems are musical, magical and have a clarity which goes straight to the heart.” Adrian Mitchell
The Amazing Spinning Woman
I push against the air, a swimmer
without water, I am a caught fish
on a barbless hook
high above the mosaic floor
where chips of zigzag pattern
blur to watercolour pale
underneath an amber roof, cheek
by jowl with gilded cornice, jade
green arch and barley-sugar twist.
My head is tilted to an angle,
sharp against the soft curves
of the ceiling, and my hair
falls back - a fur of hair,
the brush of a fox
on the back of my neck.
I know the broidered garlands,
hand-stitched swags across my belly
quiver as my body stiffens;
I grit my teeth on metal,
tighten jaw and neck, a flick
to jerk the wire to start the push,
the slow-turn spin; hold on
and push against the air,
push harder, wider, faster,
till I’m flying, till
I am a sparkle-hoop
against a painted sky.
in Houses Without Walls (Two Rivers Press)
© Susan Utting