Summer School 2012

The 8th Tower Poetry Summer School for young poets aged 18-23 will be held in Christ Church, Oxford from 28-31 August 2012. The tutors will be Alan Gillis (University of Edinburgh, Scotland) and Kevin Young (Emory University, Atlanta, USA).

 

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Tower Poetry,
Christ Church,
Oxford, OX1 1DP
Tel: 01865 286591
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Romer, Stephen

Strasbourg

Trailing back, smitten through the small hours,
I thought of Anna’s bedhead languor
unchanged these many years,

her unreformed Romanticism
of the first wave – ein Uber-Kunst,
the All in One, the One in All ! –

her Decadence of the last,
draped women, green fairy, industrial smoke
from a Rimbaud pipe –

of her delectable heart-shaped lostness,
« What then is my Destiny ? », and
« I thought the Germans not much fun,

but then I came to live in France ! »

The ghosts of Europe settled back
in a sung lament from the Polar Circle,

her Russian Blue with beer-green eyes
buzzed and stared me out : Allez, debout !
She broached a terminal, corrosive Quetsch.

Trailing back, I looked into the Ille and saw
in their folded necks
an emblem out of Gutenberg,

the symbol of infinity, come apart,
the helix, about to close,

two sweet sleepers, treading water.
 

About Tower Poetry

Tower Poetry exists to encourage and challenge everyone who reads or writes poetry. Funded by a generous bequest to Christ Church, Oxford, by the late Christopher Tower, the aims of Tower Poetry are clear: to stimulate an enjoyment and critical appreciation of poetry, particularly among young people in education, and to challenge people to write their own poetry. Creative writing should be a central element in literary education, and learning about writing poetry can help students to think about ways of reading poetry.

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Publications

The TwelveThe Twelve:

Poems from the 7th Tower Poetry Summer School 2010
Edited by Daljit Nagra and Jo Shapcott
The Twelve contains 56 poems from the 12 young poets who attended the Summer School.