I am delighted that my poem Road Atlas is being considered in the final round of this year’s Bath Poetry Café competition. Sue Boyle has kindly posted a critique of it on www.sueboylepoetry2.com. My thanks to her for her thoughtful consideration of this piece.
Road Atlas
It was while studying his road atlas
In a layby on the A417
In search of the Roman settlement of Ampney Crucis
That he noticed the similarity
Between the patterns of the B roads
And the veins on the back of his palms –
Causing him to wonder if his whole existence,
Played out somewhere between the zodiac and the genome,
Had been lived in order to bring him
To this place,
And this moment,
And to the realization
That the back of a frosted sycamore leaf
Temporarily attached to the sole of his right shoe
Contained the map of another entire universe
That was just about to disappear.
Review:
http://sueboylepoetry2.com/jonathan-steffen-reflects-on-the-universe/
Photograph © Jo Wilson
