Hilary Menos
Congratulations to Hilary Menos whose collection 'Berg' has been awarded the 2010 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Here are 3 of Hilary's poems to wet your appetite. Berg After the Larsen breakout of ninety-five, when a mound the size of Rutland calved with a howl into the Amundsen sea, and bergy bits and growlers surrounded Cape Longing, we were on standby. Glaciologists from Colorado to London argued over fracture mechanics and bed forms. Every satellite map looked like a storm breaking. We put a watch on the ice tongue Now everything mattered; melt water ponding, the crystallography of frazil ice, the hole in the ozone layer the thermodynamics of polar-bear hair. We sandbagged East Anglia, Holland They came like brides, majestic over Barking Reach, queued to check-in at the Barrier, their tabular tops reflecting weak sun, waltzed towards Wapping and Wandsworth, cold and hooded, each one like an inmate from some asylum holding the flowered hem of her ancient sli...