A Soldier Posted to the Antarctic 1920 by Pauline Plummer
A Soldier Posted to the Antarctic 1920
Why does the Eskimo batman
wear a jacket made from sponges?
We put our wolf suits on at night
but still shiver in our tents, numbed.
Tomorrow we’ll shoot penguins for our dinner.
Not dog again!
Once I ate a pelican in Jamaica. It made me ill.
A native cured it with a fennel tea.
Martha gathered ferns there, pressed them onto paper.
The butterflies were the same size as her hands.
Once we made a mermaid out of monkey skins and tuna fish.
How scared the natives were!
The Royal Scots would gamble in the barracks
after diving naked in the water-fall filled pool.
Don’t think about women here.
I bought a pair of silk embroidered shoes
in China, fish swimming in the spray
and gave them as a present to my Martha.
She held one in her palm as I told her
Of the binding process.
When this tour is over I will bring
her fossils chipped from out the rocks.
Pauline Plummer was shortlisted in the main category of the NCLA’s Water Poetry Competition 2012.
The NCLA Water Poetry Competition was judged by W.N. Herbert and John Burnside. The ceremony was held at Northern Stage on 23rd February 2012.
Photographs of the event can be viewed here.
Photographs of the event can be viewed here.
NCLA Water Poetry Competition website.
A little background from Pauline Plummer about writing this poem: ‘the poem resulted from researching in Newcastle museums – in the underground stores where much fascinating material is held. A sense of collections of loot brought back in the time of colonialism was engendered.’
And a short bio: Pauline is a poet and short story writer with 2 recent books – Bint (Red Squirrel Press) and a verse novella From Here to Timbuktu (Smokestack). She teaches creative writing at Northumbria and the Open University.