Moniza Alvi

Motherbird

A big blousy bird in the nest – 

   the vee of her beak wide open.

She can only digest little pieces

   broken off the larger offerings.

Sometimes it seems that almost

   every part of Motherbird is sore.

Torn twigs are rough-pricking,

   the floor is mossy and tender.

Rain makes the place uninhabitable.

   The sun tries to dry it.

It’s surprising what she fits into a nest

   when I think she alone would fill it.

The boxy, sharp-edged carriage clock

   next to her downy bed belongs

to the grander epoch of Fatherbird.

   It’s rain-proof, snow-proof, solid,

its two steely hands telling the truth

   about time and telling a lie.

I’ll come again on Tuesday I say.

   Her head droops to her breast. 

Her eyes close. Motherbird – her stick

   propped against the woven wall.

*

When Motherbird Met Fatherbird

and Fatherbird met Motherbird

   so many feathers of the world 

were ruffled. It was just after the War –

   and now this war:

They’re from such different countries. 

   It’s unnatural.

But the clouds parted to let them through. 

   The sky rang –

and slowly, deliberately, like a stage-set

   a whole landscape slid into place.

With certainty – and uncertainty

   Motherbird and Fatherbird flew off.

Flew back. And settled. 

   They didn’t just drift like leaves.

This is our home now they said –

   stretching the world at its seams.

*

from The Afterlife of Fatherbird

1

Now that he’s dead Fatherbird walks even more unsteadily

   flies even more erratically –

      and as he walks he tries to pluck words out of the air

as if he’s plucking feathers.

   All the words float off, they’re made of such a light substance.

      They don’t want to stick to him any more. 

I wouldn’t think he’d need words now, but he does.

   Motherbird has so many and can’t give him any of them –

      it was the same in the last of his living years.

2

Now that he’s dead I’m waiting for Fatherbird to visit me 

   in a dream. 

      Months and years have passed. 

Perhaps he’s waiting too – for the right moment.

   Perhaps he doesn’t know that this is possible for him.

      Or it could be that he has more pressing things to do.

Perhaps he’s enjoying the soft ripeness of a mango

   the juice running down his front?

      It may be a question of patience.

Fatherbird, there’s a space for you, should you wish to visit –

    dreams are such large

                                       hospitable places. 

8 Motherbird

9 Motherbird Can’t Fly

10 Her Feathers

11 The Egg and the Dream

12 Motherbird and Her Life So Far

13 Invisible

14 Motherbird’s Ornament

15 The Coldest Winter

16 When Motherbird Met Fatherbird

17 Golden Bird

18 Motherbird Sings

19 A Photo of Fatherbird

21 The Afterlife of Fatherbird

31 Chinese Story

33 Three poems inspired by the paintings of Remedios Varo

33 A Portrait of the World

34 Creating the Birds

35 Allegory of Winter

37 The Empty Nest

38 A Soft White Feather Lying on the Grass

39 November Trees

40 Stories

42 The Callers

43 The Vanishing Point

44 Being Alive

45 To the Birds

46 Birds and Naturalists

47 At the Frontier

48 The Bird and the Artist

50 A Long Reign

51 Blood Feathers

53 No Comfort

54 The Tree

55 Fatherbird’s Despair

56 The Nest They Made

57 Dark Bird

58 What I hear now is tuneless

59 The Mirror

60 Less, much less

63 Acknowledgements

'Alvi is a bold surrealist, whose poems open the world up in new, imaginatively absurd ways' - Ruth Padel, Independent.

'Much of Alvi's work engages with a surreal or fantastical world of fractured and partially recovered identity, working through sequences in her most recent poetry' - Deryn Rees-Jones, Modern Women Poets.

'Moniza Alvi's world is a place of wild energy...Alvi's voice has achieved a relaxed naturalness, a fluidity which allows her to present these delicious, extraordinary poems as though it were easy' - Kathleen Jamie & Hugo Williams, PBS Bulletin.

'She is a skilled storyteller, recounting the extraordinary in the voice of the everyday, so that we accept the miraculous as something we need...the overriding impression is of a deft, restrained language carrying ideas with metaphysical wit and seriousness' - Leonie Rushforth, London Magazine.

'One of the few British poets whose work could currently be described as essential reading, not least as we try to grasp what fractures of cultural difference might have contributed to the 7 July bombings.' - Tim Robertson, Magma

'Her voice is spare, oblique, surreal, compassionate and original.’ - Ruth Padel, The Guardian

'She has a metaphysical wit, both very economical and very wild; the power to create extraordinary concrete images with a lot of space around them; and an imagination so surreal that surreal is where we start. We only gradually realise that she is using the surreal as a lens through which her poems marvel at so-called real life. It is all presented so fluidly and naturally, with a smile and subtle humour, that you accept it instantly.' – Ruth Padel, The Poem and the Journey

'At the Time of Partition is a truly extraordinary collection, a work which succeeds in being spare, compelling and timeless. Furthermore, for the subcontinental reader, it captures a moment of time, a memory, so visceral that it has an extraordinary power. This book should not be missed.' - Muneeza Shamsie, Dawn

'These poems are about what is just out of reach, what cannot ever quite be captured but can be imagined with such delicacy that it becomes real.’ – Helen Dunmore, Observer

'Moniza Alvi's world is a place of wild energy... Alvi's voice has achieved a relaxed naturalness, a fluidity which allows her to present these delicious, extraordinary poems as though it were easy.’ – Kathleen Jamie and Hugo Williams, PBS Bulletin