Tuesday poem #582 : Ian Seed : Fired

 

There was one poem left to workshop when the last session

I was ever going to teach at the university came to the end

of its allotted time,

 

so I said we could add an extra quarter of an hour

for the poem, but then found myself for the first time in years

dying for a cigarette.

 

Even if smoking was of course forbidden in the seminar rooms,

I asked one of the students to ask Stella in the office if she

would offer me one of her cigarettes.

 

A couple of minutes later the students watched incredulously

as I lit up (with a match from the box Stella had lent me)

and puffed away – like a poet from the 1970s,

 

it occurred to me, as I began asking questions about

the poem to get the students talking

instead of staring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ian Seed's [Photo by Jonathan Bean for Lancaster litfest] recent collections of poetry and prose poetry include Night Window (Shearsman, 2024), Operations of Water (Knives, Forks & Spoons Press, 2020), and New York Hotel (Shearsman, 2018) (a TLS Book of the Year). His most recent translations are The Dice Cup, from the French of Max Jacob (Wakefield Press, 2022), and the river which sleep has told me, from the Italian of Ivano Fermini (Fortnightly Review Odd Volumes, 2022). See www.ianseed.co.uk

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan