Stone Milk

ANNE STEVENSON

STONE MILK

The poems of Stone Milk address the way the written word preserves yet distorts the lives depending on it for fame or survival. Anne Stevenson’s highly engaging new collection opens with A Lament for the Makers, an experimental sequence based on medieval dream poetry that plays with a Dante-inspired yet modern, scientific vision of an underworld of poets. This is followed by a series of shorter poems, mostly related to ageing and the prospect (even the comfort) of dying. The Myth of Medea ends the book on a note both stoic and merry, despite its frank look at the reality of death. Stevenson rewrites the myth as an ‘entertainment’ to be set to music – her own original take on how ancient, classical stories are reinterpreted by societies that inherit and retell them.

Anne Stevenson is a major American and British poet. Born in Cambridge of American parents, she grew up in the States but has lived in Britain for most of her adult life. Rooted in close observation of the world and acute psychological insight, her poems continually question how we see and think about the world. They are incisive as well as entertaining, marrying critical rigour with personal feeling, and a sharp wit with an original brand of serious humour. Stone Milk is her 14th collection, her first since Poems 1955–2005.

‘One of the major poets of our period…humane, intelligent and sane…with patches of wit and fury, which only serve to bring out the humanity’ – George Szirtes, London Magazine

‘Anne Stevenson breaks astringent landscapes of elemental indifference, stone, difficult love and the bedrock grief of things into poem after poem which will not admit defeat at their hands.…One of the most civilised and enjoyable voices of our time’ – Peter Scupham, PN Review

COVER PAINTING

Rhododendrons, Himalayas by Paul Stangroom

Anne Stevenson

STONE MILK

In loving memory of

SUSAN COOPER

(1935–2006)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A Lament for the Makers was first published in August 2006 in a special edition of 200 copies by Andrew McNeillie’s Clutag Press in Thame, Oxfordshire. ‘Stone Milk’, ‘The Enigma’, ‘Orcop’ and ‘Inheriting my Grandmother’s Nightmare’ have appeared in Poetry (Chicago). ‘Near the End of a Day’ was published by The Dark Horse (Scotland) as was ‘Jet Lag’, the latter commissioned by Sir Arthur Wolfendale for his celebratory volume, Harrison in the Abbey, honouring John Harrison, inventor of the Longitude Clock. ‘Before Eden’ was published by Poetry Review; ‘Completing the Circle’, by Society Today (Winter 2006). ‘An Even Shorter History of Everything’, written to celebrate the installation of Bill Bryson as Chancellor of Durham University on 9 November 2005, appeared in Other Poetry (Winter 2006). ‘City Lights’ was published by the TLS in December 2006.

The three dedicatory poems were written to celebrate the 70th birthdays of the poet-dedicatees. ‘An Ode on the Changes to be Reckoned with in the New Scotland’, for Stewart Conn, was published in There’s a Poem to be Made, edited by Christine De Luca (Shore Poets, Edinburgh, 2006). ‘Listen to the Words’, for John Lucas, appeared in Speaking English, edited by Andy Croft (Smokestack Books, 2007). ‘Metaphors Accepted’, for Michael Standen, appeared in Still Standen, a special issue of Other Poetry edited by James Roderick Burns (July 2007).

The Myth of Medea was written in 2003-04 (and revised in summer 2006) as a libretto for a short opera. It appears in this book in a rather more extended form as ‘an entertainment’. The Nurse’s opening aria and the concluding duet are quoted from D.W. Lucas’s translation of Euripides’ Medea (Cohen & West, London, 1949).

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prelude from Piers Plowman

A LAMENT FOR THE MAKERS

STONE MILK

Near the End of a Day

Stone Milk

Before Eden