The Poem of the Month for June 2024, selected by 2024 Anthology editors Ivan Rehorek (Avalanche) and Martha Landman, is Sympathy for Iago by Virginia Hussin. The commended poems are How To Meet A Deadline by Sue O’Brien and Ice Man by David Harris.
Sympathy for Iago
Virginia Hussin
Our year 12 English teacher, Mrs Candy
Is most perplexed – one could say unsettled
Because so many of us feel sorry for Iago.
Iago is supposed to be the villain
But we variously argue
That he was working-class
That the world was stacked against him
That he didn’t have the advantages
In life that for example, Cassio had
Let alone the handsome Othello
Who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth
What generation were we to be saying these things?
Did we excuse all villains? No, but we truly felt for Iago.
We were supposed to forgive The Noble Othello
Well, we liked him but couldn’t forgive him his stupidity.
We thought he should have trusted Desdemona
We said how totally pathetic it was
That you could kill someone you loved
Based on a misplaced handkerchief!
Of course, we were the first class
In over a century
That yielded no vocations,
None of us entered the convent
To become nuns.
Ours was the class
Where the number of debutantes
Could be counted on one hand.
Many of us didn’t marry
Or kept our own names if we did.
1969 must have been a Watershed year
The question is: would Iago have approved?
How To Meet A Deadline
Sue O’Brien
Deadlines,
uncompromising
must be approached
with caution and respect.
Never attempt
to trick the Deadline
by pretending
you don’t care.
It’s often wise
to set a deadline
for the Deadline
to leave some room
in case you fail.
Carefully check the horizon
for apparitions
and mirages…
When the horizon flatlines
you are looking at
the deadline –
the line past which
escaping prisoners
will be shot.
Ice Man
David Harris
Five thousand years ago the “ice-man” died.
They called him Ötzi; what of that?
His name, his tribe, his ancestry unknown,
we have his body, well preserved, his few
belongings, tools and weapons of the hunt.
He’d eaten recently – his stomach held
the evidence. Quite warmly clad as well.
So did he lose his path? Misfortune come his way?
And then they found the arrow-head of flint
lodged firmly, fatally, between his ribs.