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Poetry

“Michael Symmons Roberts’ poems are intense and sensual explorations of the moment when the soul quickens to some ice-cracking life”
The Observer

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Libretti

"MacMillan makes Roberts' words flow as naturally as psalm-pointing. One moment he is as desolate as Rilke, the next as subtle as Sappho or a Tang dynasty poem."
The Independent

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Broadcast

“The poet and dramatist Michael Symmons Roberts is an outstanding writer, whom radio has done much to nurture.”
Sunday Times

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News

DRYSALTER REVIEWED IN THE OBSERVER
Michael’s latest poetry collection – Drysalter – was reviewed in the Observer by Kate Kellaway. link...

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DRYSALTER IS MADE PBS CHOICE, AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE TS ELIOT PRIZE
Michael’s 6th poetry collection – ‘Drysalter’ – to be published by Cape in April 2013, has been made the Poetry Book Society’s Summer Choice,...

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CLEMENCY RECEIVES US PREMIERE
James MacMillan’s opera Clemency – with libretto by Michael – was co-commissioned by Boston Lyric Opera, Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera and the Britten...

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Books

Half Healed

Read about Half Healed >

Corpus

Read about Corpus >

Burning Babylon

Read about Burning Babylon >

Raising Sparks

Read about Raising Sparks >

Soft Keys

Read about Soft Keys >

Breath

Read about Breath >

Edgelands

Read about Edgelands >

Drysalter

Read about Drysalter >

  
           
 

Poem

This poem is from
Drysalter »

             

HITCHCOCKEAN

The birds are taking over. Not in rows on high wires,
chittering on rooves at passers-by, fixing a lone child
with their red-ringed, sink-hole eyes, not by massing

on our window-sills at dawn and tap-tap-tapping
with the urgency, hunger, blunt-sense of the wild,
not with a skirl and swoop like smoke cut loose from fire,

but with a single egg inside each one of us,
lodged in the fold between lungs, not felt until the break,
la petite mort when shell cracks and a song begins,

an airless, blood-borne trill, a pulse, a stretch of wing,
which may be dun wren, bird of paradise, dull rook,
and none of us can know what kind is ours,

nor even know for sure it’s there, this skitter,
this arrhythmia, this restlessness, this ache that makes
you walk out, mid-meal, steal a car and disappear.

(first published in 'POEM')

 

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