Barbican Young Poets 2019-20
Esme Allman
'Into the Night'
Listen
Into the Night
There is a woman trying to summon ghosts.
Her voice sounds like marble.
Her cliff’s edge
fringe
and tight bob are harsher than she is;
still, she conjures.
Pulls together two cities that were never
meant to meet.
Most of these ghosts are dissidents – they know not to surface here.
Those who do come
tip toe across the tiles
their colours
picked carefully from a swatch
that distinguishes
porcelain and alabaster
as different versions of white.
The replicas were enough to let them repeat their dance, the woman explains.
Those plucked
from the black are made
fugitives
once more
you can hear them
running in the walls.
And when you look into the eyes of a painting
whereJesusisanarroweyedblackmanwearingsunglasses
they make him blink
just to remind you who god
really is.
About Esme Allman
Esme Allman is a multi-disciplinary artist who is a poet, theatre-maker and facilitator based in South East London. Right now, her work explores blackness, desire, and imagination. In August 2020, she was commissioned by Sydenham Arts to curate and deliver a series of workshops titled The Space of Our Lack is the Space of Possibility. Her work has appeared in POSTSCRIPT, the Barbican Young Poets Anthology and The Skinny. She has forthcoming work as part of BBC Sounds and ICA New Creatives Commission, Barbican’s Subject to Change and English Heritage. She is an alumnus of Barbican Young Poets and Roundhouse Poetry Collective.
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