Here at Leeds Book Club, we’re always looking for new poems and poets…well I say we…me mostly. 

This year, we’ve invited our friends from the blog and tweet sphere to share their favourite poems. 

Hope that you enjoy these!

Leeds Inspired has chosen the following poem to get our year started on the right foot. As tomorrow is the third Monday in January and widely believed (on the internet anyway – see HERE)to be the most depressing day of the year, this seems the perfect antidote!

MORNING SONG
SYLVIA PLATH

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.  The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

* * * * *

Leeds Inspired have become friends with us via Twitter and never fail to keep us appraised of whats happening on the Leeds scene. 

Feel free to swap howdys with Abby and Jane at @LeedsInspired - they're very friendly and upbeat!!

You can find out more about Leeds Inspired by clicking HERE