Selima Hill

My Mother with a Pair of Scissors


Why’s my mother never seen at school?
Or even in the neighbour’s house next door?

Is she fast asleep in her eye-mask?
Or does she creep around the house with scissors

looking for a wing to be clipped?
Does she cower, drenched in eucalyptus oil,

in bedding primed with orange peel and Marmite,
listening for the whine of the mosquitoes

who track her day and night, who won’t let go,
who aren’t so much devoted as deranged?

Whatever is she doing all the time
alone in our enormous house next door?

Is she frightened? I have no idea.
Maybe she just sleeps all day like pears.


*


Marriage


The fact our mothers married our fathers
is something we don’t ever want to think about –
it’s easier to think they’re rubber parents
of rubber children in a rubber world.
Everybody trusts them. They’re so charming.
We, however, only trust ourselves.
We sit in rows like wolves in the cedar tree
and wait together for our hearts to break.< .


*


Other People’s Mothers


Other people’s mothers are so kind,
they give me biscuits,
sometimes even sweets
wrapped in squeaky paper,
chinking tea-sets,
but if I hear their husbands coming in
I run back home as fast as I can,
home to where my mother
curls upstairs
as if she’s been forbidden to come down,
as if she isn’t worthy of normality,
as if she has denied herself a life,
alas, my mother is a divorcee,
a divorcee is something like a murderess
but murder I can understand
like jugs.


*


Tinkle, Tinkle


Humility is all very well
but somebody is taking it too far:
she’s like a distant valley lost in mist,
a dream of tinkling goats without the goats.

 

Fishface
    25     My Mother with a Pair of Scissors
    25     The Green Bear
    26     Ponies
    26     The Boiled Egg
    26     Good Morning, Reverend Mother
    27     Wasps
    27     Real Cherries
    27     Edith
    28     The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Ears
    28     Melted Chocolate
    29     What Other Things?
    29     Mother Mary
    30     Mountaineering
    30     People in Taxis
    31     What to Wear in Bed
    32     My Mother on the Verge of Tears
    32     Lambs
    33     Clocks
    33     The Man in the Veil
    34     The Toot of the Jag
    34     The Word Laburnum
    35     Rounders
    35     Ants
    36     This Nasty Chair
    36     Switzerland
    37     Fishface
    37     Zvuv
    38     Notes

My Friend Weasel
    40     Perfection
    40     The Plait
    40     The New Assistant Matron
    41     Flamingos
    41     The Daughter of the Chauffeur
    42     My Mother Visits My Father
    42     Gravel in Our Hair
    42     The Pilot
    43     Those Who Love Their Fathers
    43     The Queen
    43     What We Do After Church
    44     One Hot Day
    44     Tennis
    44     Horses
    45     The Shimmering Plains of Africa
    45     Golf
    46     Out of Reach in Their Enormous Coats
    46     Hula-hooping on the Log-shed Roof
    47     Rabbit Pie
    47     Hairbrushes
    47     Brigitte Bardot
    48     Summer Term
    48     Sherbet Lemons
    49     People at a Cat Show
    49     Mosquitos
    49     Lights Out
    50     My Friend’s Uncle’s Tortoise
    50     Young Ladies
    50     Rudolf Nureyev’s Hair
    51     Swimming in the Lake
    51     Sunday
    52     Mothers, Mothers, Mothers
    52     Candelabra
    52     Summer
    53     Violets
    53     Fleas
    53     Marriage
    54     Mouse
    54     End-of-term Concert
    55     Train
    55     Toilets, Waterloo Station
    55     Uzbekistan
    56     The House

Susan and Me
    59    The New Girl
    59     Her Bedside Locker
    59     The Horse
    60     Her Late Mother’s Mason Pearson Hairbrush
    60     Like Painted Barges
    60     Without Sin
    61     A Man with a Palm
    62     The Love of One Potato for Another
    62     The Blood-stained Mower
    63     Disobedience
    63     Her Green-and-white-striped Dress
    64     The Lesson
    64     Sailing
    65     Acne
    65     Flapjacks
    65     Pig
    66     Her Father’s Car
    66     The Art Galleries and Churches of Central Europe
    67     Her Little Suitcases
    67     Along the Fringes of This Dazzling World
    68     Bedsit
    68     Solid as a Rock
    69     Curd
    69     Tinned Fish

Dolly
    73    When I Was a Girl I Was Adorable
    73    Mother Mary
    74     Olivia on the Coach
    74     Mrs Potter the Cook
    75     Georgina’s Mother
    75     My Friend Eva
    76     Lucinda in the Wood
    76     Great-Aunt T.
    77     Miss Gee, Matron
    77     Bernadette Upstairs
    78     Doctor Kay
    78     Mrs Lawrence, Landlady
    79     Sophia, Prefect
    79     Cousin Helen
    79     Miss de Vos, Headmistress
    80     Marta My Room-mate
    80     Kitty in Term-time
    81     The Woman on the Mountain
    81     Mrs A., Abandoned
    81     Carlotta, the Pianist
    82     Lizzie, Widow
    82     Jean, Out-patient
    83     My Friend Annie
    84     Edna in the Loo
    84     Penny in the Opposite Bed
    84     Billie My Rival
    85     Angelina, My Tutor
    85     Isabel, My New Boss
    86     Dr Davey
    86     Linda

My Mother with a Beetle in Her Hair
    88    Owls
    88     My Uncle the Doctor
    89     My Mother’s Hands
    90     The Man with Tiny Books
    90     Winter Afternoons at the Pool
    91     My Mother Wearing More than One Coat
    91     The Pool Attendant at Night
    92     The Man Who Looks Like a Baby
    92     The Woman from the Nail Bar
    93     Walnut
    93     The Girl Who Stroked Cows
    94     Her One Desire
    94     The Stranger on the Bus
    95     Different Kinds of Honey
    96     My Mother’s Daughter
    96     The Bony Woman with the Tiny Waist
    97     My Mother and the Sheep
    97     Looking at Each Other’s Breasts in the Changing-room
    98     My Mother as a Daisy
    98     Café in the Snow
    99     The Man with Snow-white Skin
    100     A Woman with a Bunch of Red Roses
    100     Having Fun with Babies
    101     An Old Man Blue with Cold
    102     The Woman with the Plait
    102     Rabbits
    103     Friday Night at the Swimming-pool
    104     The Man in Purple Swimming-trunks
    104     The Photograph of My Dog in My Duffle-bag
    105     A Very Dark Blue
    105     The Silent Couple No One Really Knows
    106     The Woman in the Salmon-pink Underwear
    106     Delicate Questions from the Young Doctor
    107     Expensive Swimwear
    108     No More Potatoes

Fridge
    110     The Beach
    110     Rabbits
    111     Tiny Children
    111     The Letter
    112     Other People’s Mothers
    112     My Father Dreams He is a Lorry
    113     Men with Saws
    113     Standing in the Presence of My Father
    114     My Father’s Roses
    114     My Father’s Death
    115     A Dream of Forgiveness
    115     Kate
    116     Being Fast Asleep in the Daytime
    116     J.J.
    117     M.
    117     My Friend H.
    118     Getting Used To It
    119     Babies with Buckets
    120     The Person in the Drawing-room
    120     The Goose
    121     How To Be Tidy
    121     Maybe I Should Give It a Try
    122     My Mother Playing Tennis
    123     Babs
    124     The Dead
    124     Telepathy
    125     The Room
    126     Her Being Dead

My Spanish Swimsuit
    128    The Earwig
    128     My Little Sister
    128     The Box of Assorted Plasters
    129     Tea on the Lawn
    129     My Father, God
    129     Betrayed
    130     Saluki
    130     Shadow
    130     Which Is Worse?
    131     My Pet
    131     Smarties
    131     Adults
    132     My Mother and Small Children
    132     Courting
    132     Ringlets
    133     My Father
    133     Rabbits
    133     The Head of the Table
    134     The Girls in the Churchyard
    134     My Spanish Swimsuit
    134     Shoulders
    134     Yes to the Carpenter
    135     My Father’s Rabbit
    135     I’m Sorry It Has Had to Be Like This
    135     Moths
    136     My Girlfriends’ Boyfriends
    136     My Father is Right
    136     The Lonely Dog in the Empty House

The Chauffeur
    139     Tiny Girls Singing Hymns
    139     Girls in Shorts
    139     The Draughtsman
    140     Fish
    140     Shells
    141     The Land of Fun
    141     My Sister’s Bedroom
    142     Ducks
    142     Rotty the Rottweiler
    143     Smile, Smile
    143     Marquetry
    144     I Send My Sister Cards
    144     Smile, Smile, Smile
    145     The Wedding-dress
    145     In the Hotel Bedroom Something Soft
    146     Hippo
    146     Ann
    147     The Suitcase
    147     Tommy
    148     Those Who Choose Not to Have Husbands
    148     Our Sparkling Eyes
    148     Queue
    149     My Sister’s Nipples
    149     Tinkle, Tinkle
    149     Tea-time
    150     She Moves Away
    150     Horses’ Ears
    150     St Petersburg
    151     The Photograph
    151     Wild Horses
    152     Georges
    152     Lips
    152     Gladioli

Girls without Hamsters

1 | Dancing Lessons for the Very Shy
    156    The Visitor (1)
    156     Dawn
    156     The Little Beanie
    157     The Handsome Spider
    157     Tiny and Forlorn
    157     The Visitor (2)
    158     The Sofa
    158     The Wasp
    159     The Top Two Things I Like About You
    159     The Bath (1)
    159     I Know It Isn’t Right
    160     Cats in Crates
    160     The Most Important Thing
    160     A Person with a Key
    161     The Visitor (3)
    161     The Crane
    161     The Ginger Cat
    162     Us
    162     The Fly
    162     The Suitcase
    163     Elephants
    163     The Man with a Pomegranate
    163     The Coat
    164     The Giraffe
    164     The Hat
    165     Tenderness
    165     The Visitor (4)
    165     When I Saw You in the Street I Fled
    166     Silence
    166     The Man I Mustn’t Meet
    166     The Path to the Woods
    167     Knees
    167     Although You’re Shy
    167     The Dachshund
    168     The Snail
    168     What I Did When I Saw You Again After So Long
    169     Swimming at Dawn
    169     Attention
    169     The Bath (2)
    170     Her Only Son
    170     Violins
    170     Your Rock
    171     Peacefully Tucked Away
    171     My Life With You
    171     One Hundred Words
    172     Never Love a Mathematician
    172     Grasses
    173     Precious Jewels
    173     Most of the Time
    173     Socks in the Snow
    174     If You Were a Pig
    174     Everything Makes Me Think of You
    175     The Enchantment
    175     Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal
    175     The Visitor (5)
    176     In a Calm Way
    176     The Person on Our Right
    176     The Rat
    177     Articulated Lorries
    177     The Bath (3)
    177     The Clock
    177     Nose
    178     Shrieks of Laughter from Inside the House
    178     Completely Out of the Blue


2 | My Mother’s Knives
    180    T.
    180    Mole
    180     My Mother’s Knives
    181     The Older Woman
    181     T.’s Room
    182     Bucket
    182     Please Forgive Me
    183     Tiers of Expensive Trainers
    183     I Worry
    183     The Visitor
    184     Into the Depths of the Sea
    184     His Tiny Mouth
    185     Through the Damp Woods
    185     Bedtime
    185     People Won’t Like It
    186     Chick
    186     Fish
    186     Paint
    187     What Is Longing?
    187     Beetles
    187     Heron
    188     Certain Older Women
    188     Hope
    188     A Precious Living Man
    189     And To Agree
    189     My Father
    190     Confessions of a Fly
    190     The Courting Spider Purrs
    190     Cranny
    191     Dreams
    191     Mouse
    192     Round and Round the Woods
    192     If T. Is Like a God
    193     When Older Women Talk About Their Lovers
    193     Legs
    194     Every Time You Move
    194     Cranefly
    195     T. on the Beach
    195     When He’s Quiet
    195     Dog
    196     My Obsession with T.
    196     The Acrobat


3 | The Passion Fruit Hotel
    198    Record-breaking Kisses
    198    My Mother and Hotels
    199     The Passion Flower Hotel
    199     The House on the Hill
    200     And Be Ye Lift Up, Ye Everlasting Doors
    200     My Mother Was Right
    200     The Lovesick Toad
    201     Crayfish
    201     Ducklings
    202     The Goose
    202     Way Up in the Heavens
    202     Fathers and Sons
    203     Honky
    203     Chandeliers
    203     Margaret
    204     Sunday Afternoon at the Beach
    204     T’s Neck
    204     What People Think About
    205     The Slug
    205     Shoebill
    206     My Friend T.
    206     Wiry
    206     The Holiday
    207     The Lizard
    207     The Oyster
    208     Soft Upturned Bellies
    208     My Mother’s Voice
    208     The Woman in Tiny Shorts
    209     My Boring Uncle
    209     What I Really Want to Know

Reduced to a Quivering Jelly
    213     The Red MG
    213     The Fox
    214     The Blanket
    214     Quivering Jelly
    215     A New Pair of Shorts
    216     Lime-ade
    217     Men in Shorts
    217     Duckling
    218     Oral Sex
    218     The China Doll
    219     Walkies
    219     The Penis of a Large Horse
    220     The Top of the Hill
    220     Mother
    221     Lola
    221     The Sponge Cake
    221     The Ambulance
    222     The Tennis Dress
    222     The Pearl Necklace
    223     The Lagonda
    223     The Question
    223     The Smell of Cows
    224     Crying for No Reason
    224     The Sultan’s Fragrant Concubines
    225     Truffles
    225     Yellow Ducks
    226     The Leotard
    226     The New Pair of Shoes
    227     The Silver Hair
    227     What Vera Needs
    228     Arboriculture
    228     Froth
    229     The Suitcase
    229     The Lovely Nurses
    230     Vera in the Bathroom with Her Puzzle Book

Dressed and Sobbing
    232    Woman on a Sofa
    232     Orange Juice
    233     Large and Small and Medium-sized Facecloths
    233     The Woman in the Bathroom Mirror
    234     What’s That Hand Doing in My Sock
    235     A Grandmother in Jeans
    236     The Pianist
    237     Women in Blankets
    238     A Story about Moose
    239     The Visitor
    240     Pies
    240     Lying on my Back in the Dark
    241     Forgiveness
    241     Naughty Girls in Dark Woods
    242     Suitcase
    244     Hootie
    245     How to Attract Men
    246     The Woman on the Bus
    247     My Mother’s Naked Body
    248     Semolina
    249     Athletic, Chaste, Untroubled
    249     Divorcee
    250     Lilies
    250     Howls of Laughter
    251     Women in Pyjamas
    251     Violet
    252     The Rooms Downstairs
    252     How to Float
    253     Little Squeaks
    253     True Love
    254     Cheese
    254     Dressed and Sobbing

'The collection is by turns surreal and direct, but always arresting.  Her trademark humour is present throughout, but its wit can often surprise the reader, conveying truths in hilarious and sometimes shocking ways. The judges were impressed by Selima's mastery of the portrait in miniature - one of the judges calling her 'the UK's Emily Dickinson'.' – Forward Prize Judges, on Selima Hill's Men Who Feed Pigeons

‘Poetry in English is more varied now than ever. I love that Selima Hill’s Men Who Feed Pigeons is shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her surreal, surprising lyrics always shed dark illumination on relationships...' – Ruth Padel, Ars Notoria (Poetry Books of the Year 2021)

'I loved Men Who Feed Pigeons, Hill’s huge book of tiny poems. One sequence, “Billy”, captures the kind of sacred friendship found only between a man and woman who have nothing in common and don’t much like each other but have been friends forever and so must soldier on regardless. It’s very, very funny...' – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph, on the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize Shortlist

'Selima Hill is a one-off, and her restless magpie mind unpicks the fragile seams of everyday experience, revealing the darkness beneath. We can choose to laugh, or we can choose to cry, but there’s no easy escape from the disconcerting experiences Hill promises her reader.' – John Field, for the T.S. Eliot Prize, on Men Who Feed Pigeons

‘Like the authors of the classical epigrams that are these poems’ ultimate model, Hill uses a spare, brief span that can give gravity to light matters as well as supporting the weightiest. Hill’s poems, however small, feel complete.’ – William Wootten, Literary Review, on Men Who Feed Pigeons

‘Born in 1945, Hill might be the heir to Stevie Smith: both are wholly original voices who pay no heed to anyone else’s idea of what a poem should be; funny writers whose humour can leave the reader startled, puzzled or uneasy as often as amused.’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph, Poem of the Week, on Men Who Feed Pigeons

‘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, The Guardian, on Gloria: Selected Poems

‘Her adoption of surrealist techniques of shock, bizarre, juxtaposition and defamiliarisation work to subvert conventional notions of self and the feminine…Hill returns repeatedly to fragmented narratives, charting extreme experience with a dazzling excess.’ – Deryn Rees-Jones, Modern Women Poets

‘She is truly gifted. She invests mundane things with visionary, delirious brilliance.’ – Graham Swift, The Sunday Times

In a searching, wide-ranging and often very funny exchange, Selima Hill talks to Poetry Review editor Emily Berry about being both a prolific writer and a private person, about secrecy and rebellion, embodiedness and encodedness. Her writing process is, she says, less about cutting ('which sounds so violent') and rather like 'lifting your hair – loosen, loosen, then tighten, tighten, tighten – spread it as far as you can, then tighten'. They discuss relationships with family, men, audiences, Eastern European literature and animals, including Hill’s pet giant land snail. She also describes how her diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, her experiences in psychiatric hospital, and periods of muteness have affected her writing. Hill gives vivid readings of all of her poems published in the winter 2020 issue of The Poetry Review, including ‘Standing on his doorstep’, ‘Jelly’ and ‘Berries’, from Men Who Feed Pigeons.