Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Poets and Poems: Jean Sprackland’s “Sleeping Keys”


We all have a box or something like a box, perhaps more than one, filled with old keys to vaguely remembered locks, old coins, paper clips, the combinations to lock thrown away years ago, extra screws for the floor lamp we bought at Target (some assembly required). Rather useless stuff, really, but we can’t quite bring ourselves to throwing it all away. Something might be hidden away among the jungle.

Those Sleeping Keys constitute the subject of the title poem in poet Jean Sprackland’s new collection, published earlier this year:

Printed with old roses or tartan and thistle,
there’s a biscuit tin like this in every house.
Prise off the lid and catch the flinty scent
of old keys, decommissioned and sleeping.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.


Photograph by amateur pic via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

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