The Man Whose Brain Turned to Glass by Joanna Lowry

Selected poem from the winning pamphlet

The Man Whose Brain Turned to Glass

When the custodian of the Collegium Augustalium
lay down that evening in the small chamber
allocated to those entrusted
with the care of the temple 

he had no idea that, as he slept, an ash cloud
so hot it approached the heat of a sun, would
envelop his sleeping body and melt his brain
into a small heap of beads that gleamed, 

black obsidian, in the cup of his skull. 

All his desires and longings were turned to glass:
fragments of twisted liquorice, shiny and dense,
holding the light of a forgotten world. 

In the laboratory I try to read this broken code
of dreams that had haunted him that shortened night. 

I hold one up to the beam of a high-wattage lamp.
I want to ask him – Which of these is love? 

How I did it

I worked for many years as a lecturer in art history, specialising in contemporary photography and video art. Ironically, I’m quite technophobic so I’m not a photographer myself – I try to make images with poetry instead.

I started writing poetry seriously back in 2010, on a writing course in Spain with Vicki Feaver. She showed me that poetry was a material thing, within which every word and space matters and has weight and value. After retirement I did an MA in 2020 with the Poetry School.

When I was an academic, I spent my life desperately trying to get academic papers published. It was a complete rat-race. I didn’t want to get back into that mind frame, so every time I tell myself that I definitely ought to send some work out, I just write another poem. 

I write all the time; if there’s a spare moment, I’ll usually be writing. So I have a mountain of work – this pamphlet is a particular subset of pieces that are set against a backdrop of war and dictatorship and natural disaster. I have other work in a more personal and lyrical style, but I like writing poems that have a cool narrative voice, that draw on an emotional response to events outside my own life. 

The title poem emerged from a newspaper story last year; that image captivated my curiosity, so I researched the science behind the phenomenon. A lot of the poems developed via that kind of process. I concentrate on moments of beauty or contemplation within the chaos. I think that’s how we survive. 

JOANNA LOWRY is a retired university lecturer living in East Sussex, who now writes and paints full time. She belongs to two workshop groups, which developed from writing courses she has attended. This pamphlet will be her first publication.

The Man Whose Brain Turned to Glass will be avialble to buy from the 24 September, directly from Bloodaxe Books
www.bloodaxebooks.com 

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A Life in Brief Men by Alison Tanik
Within the Woods by Catherine Wilson Garry
The Funambulist’s Right-Hand Man and Other Stories by Louise Ordish
Unyoke by Nicky Kippax

Meet the winners of all competitions