In a writing workshop on Tuesday, I wrote a poem (see below) in response to a Paul Muldoon poem. It was also partially inspired by "The Bridegrooms", a prose poem written by Daria Serenko on a mini-bus in Georgia. The poet had been travelling with activists from the Feminist Anti-War Resistance, a group she started to protest the Russian war in Ukraine. In an interview with The New York Review of Books, Serenko said, "When you write a poem on the road, after several night shifts of activism, as historical events overlap and become superimposed on one another, the speed at which the poem rushes through your head also increases." Later in the interview, she commented, "I would have preferred that my poem ... had never existed." You can read her (far superior) poem here.

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Peace is a thing with feathers, they say.
How we hope to see its flight
from the broken windows of our bombed-out flats.
It is the drones we hear though
lurching low above our bowed heads
livid with deadly imperial intent.
I would love to see another day:
nested in a bed with my beloved
afraid no longer, winged and cooing.

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