| Carrie Etter spent nineteen years in Normal, Illinois and thirteen in southern California before moving to England in 2001. Her pamphlet, Yet, will be published by Leafe Books early 2008, and she has two full collections forthcoming: The Tethers (Seren, 2009) and Divining for Starters (Shearsman, 2010). She is a lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University and a tutor at The Poetry School.
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Divining for Starters (29)
In the illuminated curtains, in the room’s convalescent
light
but for the bruising silence
but for the letter cast on the floor, its granite alphabet
in a mattress-and-blanket comfort, in a vestige of
illness
against the letter, its polite calumny
there is or there will be
an apricot on the stem, an apricot in the hand
(the letter)
the tug of harvest
[first published in Aufgabe]
Burns’ Night
I ate haggis tonight for the first time. The landlord, the barmaid, and a bachelor guessed at my accent. California’s more prestigious than Illinois, where the land unrolls flat as my father’s Saturday pancakes. The familiar has the colour, consistency of flour, but there’s helplessness in describing a taste that’s white as clouds the world over, but for a hue beyond certainty or name.
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