Rachel Piercey is a freelance poet, editor and tutor. She writes for all age groups and teaches for The Poetry School. In her latest pamphlet collection, she scrutinises the plight and might of young women in an age of competing symbols. Notions like ‘love’, ‘chivalry’ and ‘marriageability’ — what can they possibly mean these days?
I died in The Archers
but the women were marvellous.
They discussed it for weeks,
and it was a sharp pleasure
hearing their praise of me
without confronting the brute
bruise of my body. Now each tongue
bears my pall and renders me
ex-physical. Eulogise me, Lynda,
with the gold wine of the canon.
Sluice it, Susan, through the town.
Kate, burn sage, to waft my spirit on.