Grace or Trial

by Ellora Sutton

after ‘Quiet People’ by Moniza Alvi

His wife and I are peaceful people

but that does not say
it is rare.

We swing
thunderstorms between us,

split budding fruit
from budding branches,

share lipsticks
like domino masks.

She is quietly excited,
a great composer

in full swell,
full crescendo or blooming.

We have our signs –

wide open window,
ajar garden door,

a sheet spread
over the flowerbeds.

I listen through the neighbours
mowing their yellow lawns

for our promise –

by grace or trial,
send a clear note

like cutting
silence

with ivory or air,

her own
wild fingers,

her own
tangled hair,

laying it
sashimi

at my feet.

This poem is the first prize winner in the third Bloodaxe Archive challenge on Young Poets Network, The Re-Re-Re-Drafting Challenge. This was part of a series of writing challenges asking young poets worldwide to respond to the digital Bloodaxe Archive. This particular challenge asked poets to pick a poem from the Archive and apply a series of re-drafting techniques to it, until it became a new poem of their own.

This poem is after 'Quiet People' by Moniza Alvi. Ellora explains her re-drafting process: "First of all I put the original poem, ‘Quiet People’ by Moniza Alvi, through Google Translate. I translated from English to Japanese, from Japanese to Arabic, from Arabic to French, from French to Finnish, and then from Finnish back to English. Next I went through and messed with the pronouns, first of all changing ‘My wife and I’ to ‘His wife and I’, which sparked the direction for the rest of the poem. I then rewrote it with a changed perspective, that of the wife’s lover. Finally, I went through and changed the tense from past to present. For further editing, I read the poem out loud to tweak the rhythm/sound. I also played with lineation."

Find out more about the challenge and the Bloodaxe Archive, and try re-re-re-drafting a poem yourself, here.

Ellora Sutton

Ellora is the first-prize winner of the Carol Ann Duffy challenge on Young Poets Network, judged by Mari Hughes-Edwards, and celebrating Duffy's legacy as Poet Laureate. She is also the first-prize winner of Bailey Blackburn's 2018 August challenge #2 on found poems and the third Bloodaxe Archive challenge, The Re-Re-Re-Drafting Challenge. Ellora is also the second-prize winner in August challenge #4 on the poetics of interrogation, written and judged by Foyle Young Poet Kara Jackson in 2019. Ellora is commended in: the first and second Bloodaxe Archive challenges, The Poetics of the Archive and White Space; the 2019 poetry translation challenge with Modern Poetry in Translation, judged by Clare Pollard; the Mary Wollstonecraft challenge, written and judged by Bee Rowlatt of the Mary on the Green campaign; the moon poetry challenge, judged by Nii Parkes; the Golden Shovel challenge, judged by Peter Kahn; the Bletchley Park challenge, judged by So Mayer; the W. S. Graham challenge judged by Rachael Boast as part of Graham’s centenary celebrations; and Ankita Saxena’s protest poetry challenge, remembering 100 years of the women’s vote in the UK. Her work has been published by The Cardiff Review, Blue Marble Review and Nightingale & Sparrow among others. She was commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize.