Saturday 11 January 2014

The Threat of Sweet Peas by Robin Muers

The threat of sweet peas: a questioning exploration about evolution, and the nature of man from close observation of sweet peas, whose “flutterings” become “butterflies, / debutantes with untried wings / too scared to launch”. Changing to “lifeboat pods”, that “start flying”, “Perhaps their eggs take root”. The descriptions are exquisitely delicate; and the range of imagination and philosophising as disturbing and intriguing as the poem’s startling title suggests.

The Threat of Sweet Peas was commended in the Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition 2012. The poem appears in The Genesis of Falcon – the competition winners anthology.

THE GENESIS OF FALCON  is available here.