the poet
Writing in her second language, Laura Theis has work in POETRY, Oxford Poetry, Magma, Rattle and elsewhere. As well as being nominated for a Forward Prize, she's been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize and the Hammond House International Literary Award. In addition, Laura's collection, A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things, won the Live Canon Collection Prize. She has two new volumes of poetry due out in 2025: a collection with Broken Sleep Books, and her debut children’s poetry book with The Emma Press, Poems From A Witch’s Pocket.
the poems
in my mother tongue the name
for grand piano is wing
in my mother tongue
words can be feathered
which turns them into
old jokes or proverbs
owning a bird
in my mother tongue
is sign of great madness:
you can accuse someone
with an outrageous opinion
of cheeping and chirping
if you want to convey
that you are flabbergasted or awed
in my mother tongue
you might say: my dear swan
which is what I think
when I first hear you play
as your fingers move over
the keys I wonder
what gets lost
in translation
between music
and birdsong
whether both soar above
our need to shift between words
then I remember
in my mother tongue
the name for grand piano
is wing
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Medusae
Do not lose faith on the day you wake up
with spiders instead of hair.
Do not cry as you look in the mirror.
Remember: They may stay. They may not.
They are here for now.
If you must, take pains to cover your head.
Hide their crawling under your most elegant hat
lest people recoil from you in the streets.
Or don’t. Remember Medusa and her snakes.
She’d turn anyone to stone if they looked at her frightened.
She was a monster and proud. All hiss, curse and scorn: danger.
And yet to think someone must have loved her enough
to name half of all jellyfish
those moon-glowing blooms of floating
fluorescent umbrellas and bells
after her.
miðnæturblár
we have to look up when we search
for our dead
even though we buried them
in the ground
but the dead like to call to
us from the moon
they try to spell out their wildering
words in clouds or meteors
they try to wave at us
through murmurations
and other such avian patterns
in significant moments
they do this to teach us
to make lifting
up our eyes a habit
remember they say once
every day for
a couple of minutes
the entire sky turns
your favourite colour:
the very darkest
shade of blue
Publishing credits
in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing:
won first prize in the Poets & Players Poetry Competition 2023
Medusae: how to extricate yourself (Dempsey & Windle)
winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize
miðnæturblár: POETRY Magazine (April 2022 'Exophony')