Selima Hill

from Lambchop

The Lamb

He thought I was his lamb and he could slaughter me

but he was wrong. He should have known. Alas,

I ran away; I ran like the wind;

I ran for fifty years without stopping.

His Hairy Ears

Although he’s now too old to protest,

his hairy ears still quiver like the ears

of Antonio Stradivari of Cremona

on hearing me tiptoe past his door.

The Tulips

As he takes his vase of mauve tulips

across the hall, he catches sight of her

running up the stairs in her uniform.

He glimpses her unbearable face.

The Chandelier

Because a chandelier has got no face

a chandelier can’t talk or even smile.

What it does is take its time. The man,

also, looking down, takes his time.

Girls

Anguillophiles lure their eels with minnows,

the shepherdess her tiny gods with sheep

but gods and eels slip away like water:

girls, however, can be firmly grasped.

Cutlery

Now that I’ve been moved to the attic

tiptoeing downstairs takes much longer:

I wait until he’s safely in the dining-room

polishing the cutlery with vests.

The Tall House

Now other people live in the house,

other people turn the silver key,

other people chase the lazy pigeons

down the garden with their new brooms.

Elective Mute

19 The Fire

19 Thousands upon Thousands of Beetles

19 Elastic

20 The Bear

20 It Seems a Shame to Scream as Loud as Possible

20 I’m Sorry But I Think I Might Be Real

21 Summer Days

21 There’s More to Life than Swimming

21 Death and the Smell of Almonds

22 Coconut

22 Dumb

23 The Wedding-cake

23 PLEASE CARRY DOGS

23 Cows in Dreams

24 Rubber Bands

24 DEPTH CHANGE

24 Them

25 My Mother

25 My Head

25 Chatty

26 Made Entirely of Roses

26 Tiddlywinks

26 My Darling Spiders

27 Football

27 My First Boyfriend

27 If It Gets Too Noisy

28 My Wettened Balaclava

28 My Second Boyfriend

28 Blue Murder

29 Rubies

29 Snouts

29 Comfort

30 Sweetcorn

30 Cocoa

30 Fear

31 The Catastrophic Driving Lesson

31 Watches

31 Other People

32 Rubber Cow

32 Purple Eel-grass

32 To Disentangle Wool

33 Happiness

33 How To Smile

33 Telephone Numbers

34 Convivial

34 The Slowness of the Slow

34 Electricity

35 You and Me

35 Coffee?

35 Queen

36 Conversation in a Sheep Field

36 Having Fun

36 Seventeen Sheep

37 Children and Adults

37 Rothko and Mints

37 My Third Boyfriend’s Sunbed

38 Tickles

38 Praise and Dust

38 Arson

39 OK, OK, OK

39 Aphid

39 Hazelnuts

40 The Woman in the Changing-room and Me

40 She Follows Me Around and Upsets Me

40 In Love with Roger Federer

41 Swallow

41 Black and White Buttons

41 Why I Like Fish

42 People Who Wear Bobble-hats

42 The Huggers

42 Camping

43 Grab a Wrap

43 Simple Dunes

43 Skin

44 Havoc and Graciousness

44 Kangaroo

44 How to Sparkle

45 A Bird on a Cow

45 Empathy, Empathy, Empathy

45 Potato

46 Octopuses

46 A Person with a Saw and Some Chocolate

My Mother and Me on the Eve of the Chess Championships

49 My Mother’s Underwear

49 My Mother on a Rock with a Sketchbook

49 The Precious Moments of My Mother’s Life

50 My Mother’s Handkerchiefs

50 My Mother’s Jeans

50 My Mother’s Powder

51 My Mother in the Shoe Shop

51 My Mother in Her Nightdress

51 My Mother in the Drawing-room

52 My Mother in August

52 My Mother’s Petticoat

52 My Mother in the Studio

53 My Mother’s Omelettes

53 My Mother and Me in the Library

53 My Mother in a Swimsuit

54 My Mother’s Husband

54 My Mother’s New Clogs

54 My Mother on a Mountain-top

55 My Mother on Holiday

55 My Mother’s Mother

55 My Mother Keeps Bees

56 My Mother’s Hat

56 My Mother’s Hair

56 My Mother and the Great Dane

57 My Mother with Flour on Her Hands

57 My Mother and the Snails

57 My Mother’s Book

58 My Mother’s Shoes

58 My Mother’s Washing

58 My Mother at the Tennis Courts

59 My Mother Like a Bird

59 My Mother at the House in Gortahork

59 My Mother Plays Strip-Jack-Naked

60 My Mother in Hangzhou

60 My Mother and Small Children 

61 My Mother and Australia

61 My Mother, Normally Such a Sweet Person

62 My Mother in the Kitchen

62 My Mother’s Mortal Panic

62 My Mother by the Side of the Road

63 My Mother’s Ankles

63 My Mother’s Sponge

63 This Is How I Write About My Mother

64 My Mother and the Oceans

64 My Mother’s Car

65 My Mother’s Purse

65 My Mother and Flamingos

66 My Mother’s Silverware

66 My Mother Plays Charades

66 My Mother among the Butterflies

67 My Mother and the Sound of Chartreuse

67 My Mother in the Car Park

68 My Mother’s Gloominess

68 My Mother and the Rabbit

69 My Mother like a Dress Made of Pins

69 My Mother at the Open-air Swimming-pool

70 My Mother and the History of Art

70 My Mother’s Mattress

71 My Mother and the Sea

71 My Mother and Me on the Eve of the Chess Championships

71 Water for My Mother

72 My Mother and Men

72 My Mother’s Elegance

73 My Mother’s Doctor

73 My Mother at Night

74 My Mother in the Bath

74 My Mother in Heaven

Fishtank

77 My Brother and the Chocolates

77 My Brother’s Pipe

77 My Brother at Night

78 My Brother’s Shoulders

78 My Brother’s Fish

78 My Brother and Santa Claus

79 My Brother’s Party

79 My Brother’s Shoes

79 My Brother’s Tie

80 My Brother’s Hands

80 My Brother in Tennis Shorts

80 My Brother as a Maybug

81 My Brother’s Patients

81 My Brother’s Papers

81 My Brother’s Mother

82 My Brother’s Bacon

82 My Brother’s Door

82 My Brother’s Voice

83 My Brother’s Eggs

83 My Brother’s Jolly Side

83 My Brother’s Questions

84 My Brother on the Lawn

84 My Brother’s Flute

84 My Brother’s Chair

85 My Brother on My Wedding Day

85 My Brother’s Eyes

85 My Brother’s Nose

86 My Brother’s Spectacles

86 My Brother’s Heart

86 At Home with My Brother

Lambchop

89 An Elderly Silver-haired Gentleman

89 The Tulips

89 The Tennis Players

90 The Chandelier

90 The Swan

90 The Walking-stick

91 The Taxi

91 The Telephone

91 The Man Next Door

92 The Pigeons

92 The Forest

92 Girls

93 The Window

93 The Perfume of His Fabulous Pomade

93 The Jack Russell Terrier

94 The Doctors

94 The Fly

94 Cutlery

95 The Bandages

95 The Kitten

95 The Hornet

96 The Restaurant

96 The Nurse

96 The Patient

97 The Lily

97 Because He Never Sleeps

97 His Hairy Ears

98 The Lamb

98 The Pear

98 Visitors

99 The Bucket

99 The River

99 The Cow

100 Suddenly One Morning

100 The Tall House

The Boxer Klitschko

103 The Little Pond

103 The Picnic

103 My Cow and Fish Dream

104 The House-mistress’s Chow

104 The Elephant House

104 My Grandfather’s Biscuit

105 When My Diamond-studded Sisters Scream

105 My Hamster, Concrete

105 Jelly Beans

106 What I Saw in the Changing-Rooms

106 Why They Wear Bikinis

106 The Waterfall

107 On Holiday with My Mother and Two Sisters

107 The Regulars

107 Goose

108 What My Mother Says and What She Does

108 The Weekend at the Lake

108 Stranger

109 Underwater

109 The Egg

109 Matron

110 The Pool in Winter

110 Selflessly Making Me Hot Meals

111 My Mother’s Ironing-board

111 The Man I Didn’t Know

111 Eating Cake outside Europe’s Biggest Swimming-pool

112 Girls Who Disobey

112 Meeting My Uncle for the First Time

112 My Uncle’s Blanket

113 Breakfast at My Uncle’s

113 Everywhere You Go There Is Sea

114 A Love of Horses

114 Magnetism

114 My Uncle in the Shower

115 My Uncle’s Kippers

115 My Uncle’s Bread-slicer

115 My Uncle’s Morris Traveller

116 My Uncle’s Boathouse

116 My Uncle’s Newfoundlands

116 The Mermaid

117 My Uncle’s Sunroom

117 My Uncle Sandwiches

117 The Relationships Between Numbers

118 Heaven

119 Shoes

119 The Shop

119 The Smallest of the Aunts

120 Walking to the Boathouse

120 The Tiny Sunhat

121 If I Want to Be a Hippopotamus

121 The Yacht

122 Take the Little Boat

122 What My Mother Wanted

Helpless with Laughter

125 Ankles

125 Arm

126 Armpits

126 Belly

126 Biceps

127 Body

127 Body Parts

128 Blood

128 Bone

129 Bottoms

129 Brain

129 Breastbone

130 Breasts

130 Calves

130 Cheeks

131 Chin

131 Collarbone

132 Crotch

132 Cuticles

132 Ears

133 Elbows

133 Eye

133 Eyelashes

134 Eyelids

134 Face

134 Feet

135 Finger

135 Fingernails

135 Fringe

136 Groin

136 Hair

136 Hands

137 Head

137 Hearts

137 Heels

138 Hymen

138 Iris

138 Jaw

139 Kidney

139 Knees

139 Lanugo

140 Lips

140 Lungs

140 Muscles

141 Navel

141 Neck

141 Nerves

142 Nipples

142 Nose

142 Nostrils

143 Penis

143 Ribcage

143 Saliva

144 Shoulder-blades

144 Shin

144 Skull

145 Soul

145 Spine

146 Teeth

146 Thighs

146 Throat

147 Thumbs

147 Toes

147 Tongue

148 Veins

148 Vocal Cords

148 Womb

149 Wrists

149 Wristbone

‘Arguably the most distinctive truth teller to emerge in British poetry…Despite her thematic preoccupations, there’s nothing conscientious or worthy about Hill’s work. She is a flamboyant, exuberant writer who seems effortlessly to juggle her outrageous symbolic lexicon…using techniques of juxtaposition, interruption and symbolism to articulate narratives of the unconscious. Those narratives are the matter of universal, and universally recognisable, psychodrama…hers is a poetry of piercing emotional apprehension, lightly worn… So original that it has sometimes scared off critical scrutineers, her work must now, surely, be acknowledged as being of central importance in British poetry – not only for the courage of its subject matter but also for the lucid compression of its poetics.’ – Fiona Sampson, Guardian [on Gloria: Selected Poems and The Hat]

‘Hill, more than any other English poet, cranks out angry, impotent, abused and richly surreal Britain. And she is very very funny…fresh, fierce and convincing… A mood-swinging voice, talking to itself rather than to the reader, shows how pain and joy transform the material world.’ – Claire Crowther, Poetry London [on People Who Like Meatballs]

'Selima Hill's Jutland has an astounding vivacity. Hill is a complete original whose body of work is unique in British poetry and this volume is an example of her at her best. Jutland consists of two extended sequences: Advice on Wearing Animal Prints, a kaleidoscope of shifting perspectives presenting the character Agatha, and Sunday Afternoons at the Gravel-pits, portraying a little girl and her father. Each poem tells an uncomfortable truth, through fireworks of surreal images. Every image is a surprise, sometimes funny, usually shocking, but at the same time archetypal as a brand new fairy-tale, and all this is achieved with crystalline brevity.’ – Pascale Petit, chair of the 2015 T.S. Eliot Prize judges, on Jutland

‘Hill has a consistently refreshing imaginative voice, and a habit of always somehow looking in the opposite direction from everybody else. Jutland, her latest book, is angry, funny, moving and unnerving by turns, with the best poems tackling father-daughter relationships, violence and forgiveness in an uncompromising style. Reading her work is the strange experience of feeling as though you are looking directly through a kaleidoscope, where everything you see shines more brightly than before, only half making sense.’ – Charlotte Runcie, Daily Telegraph, on Jutland