The Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Elizabeth Gowing

During term time Elizabeth Gowing plans trips to interesting places and works as a London teacher and education consultant.  She spends the holidays on trains, writing. Her poetry and short stories have been published in more than 35 anthologies and magazines, and read on the BBC’s World Service. Her poetry collection, Making an Exhibition of Ourselves (not yet published) is made up of poems inspired by museum and gallery experiences, and exploring the other ways that we make a public show of ourselves –from football victory celebrations and firework shows to weddings and wars. She is currently finishing writing a non-fiction book about the power, the quirks, and the unknown treasures of libraries around the UK.

 

Annuraaq
This Inuit word signifies any article of clothing. The Inuit tradition that the world of land and sea must be kept separate means that clothes made from land animals cannot be worn when at sea.

These habits make it hard sometimes.
Easier for the County types –
a leather jacket and suede gloves,

woolly underwear, calf boots
and old soft moleskin trousers.
You’re more restricted in the town;

I wrap myself in newspaper
(the headlines chosen carefully
to titillate along my legs;

I make from tabloid scoops a flimsy bra),
stitch sturdy shoes of cardboard box,
brands smudging on wet pavements as I walk.

For thermal underwear,
the city’s native creatures can provide –
a sweet G-string

of young rat fur, or tabby vest of cat.
Travelling on the tube, when underground,
exotic armour’s worn – tin’s cheapest,

though some car park attendants lap themselves
in pure gold leaf
with clanking copper boots.

Swimsuits are best sewn from salmon skin
and bikinis made of otter pelt
(the natural oils shrug off water well).

Smart parties are all held in groves
of mulberry where dancers slide in silk,
But there are some clothes you can scarcely ever use –

My feather boa worn only on aeroplanes,
and nylon tights waiting for when I die,
and am dug down, returned to rock, crude oil.