Emerging Poet Award Finalist: “In other news” by Oakley Flanagan
Oakley Flanagan is a writer and poet from the West Midlands, by way of Ireland. As a playwright: ‘This Queer House’, VAULT Festival, directed by Masha Kevinovna, produced by OPIA Collective. Their poetry appears in bath magg, Poetry London, Poetry Review, The North, Under the Radar and Wasafiri, as well as anthologised work for 3 of Cups Press, Hachette UK and Trapeze. Oakley is an alum of Roundhouse Poetry Collective and The London Library Emerging Writer Programme. They are a current member of The Genesis Jewish Book Week Emerging Writers' Programme. Oakley’s pamphlet is forthcoming with Out-Spoken Press.
In other news
a woman lost her wedding ring & found it again
sixteen years later growing on a carrot inside her
garden the likeliest available explanation being
she must have removed the ring whilst peeling
the potatoes she was preparing for her husband’s
evening meal the bowl the potatoes were peeled
over must have been taken outside to the garden
upturned on a pile of rotting vegetables a compost
heap slowly turning the waste materials back into
generative forms of living matter the soil turning
the potato skins into some veritable good as they
broke down to create diverse kinds of plant life
during which time the woman’s marriage soured
bitter rows ever since she first lost the object of
her promise made suddenly visible again one day
in a sliver of orange she spotted from her kitchen
which made it look as if the ring was being worn
on a much thinner finger did rabbits begin to leap
about the compost heap proclaiming the document
of proof had risen the day her ring reappeared hey
presto instant as a parlour trick some declarative
statement carrot the most affirming of vegetables
the moral very clear now recycling is good or good
things come to those who wait it’s depressing even
in nature the gilded path to desire is heterosexual
in terms like marriage objects like wedding bands
metonymic for what is sustainable what is good
for the planet in the way paper bags are not all that
better than plastic yet remain blameless & yes all
my anger is being recapitulated another marriage
story another absent husband only present nominally
I have been reading a lot about homonormativity I
have let the side down for ever wanting my happily
assimilated ever after do all the queers die lonely
& afraid & AIDS at the end
EMERGING POET AWARD FINALIST “In other news”
Oakley Flanagan is a writer and poet from the West Midlands, by way of Ireland. As a playwright: ‘This Queer House’, VAULT Festival, directed by Masha Kevinovna, produced by OPIA Collective. Their poetry appears in bath magg, Poetry London, Poetry Review, The North, Under the Radar and Wasafiri, as well as anthologised work for 3 of Cups Press, Hachette UK and Trapeze. Oakley is an alum of Roundhouse Poetry Collective and The London Library Emerging Writer Programme. They are a current member of The Genesis Jewish Book Week Emerging Writers' Programme. Oakley’s pamphlet is forthcoming with Out-Spoken Press.