The Club of Geniuses
Madeleine Caso
Madeleine Caso
I don’t know much about poetry: the octets and sestets, the iambs and trochees,
They tell me to read between the lines, hunt out the allegory
They expect context, theories, authorial assertion
I feel a bit like a mortician dissecting brain tissue
Clinical hands on exposed flesh, coercion
Or perhaps compromise, “death to the author” is equally unfeeling
Project myself onto the antagonist, eek out my own meaning
We’re grappling for the placenta, amongst the seafoam spit
We march blind in the dark long after the candles lit.
The Volta they gasp, epiphanise laugh with us
Close the door, hasp
Join in the merriment
Of parchment and prologues, of decorum and debauchery
They revel hypothesise, forget to supplicate before the augury
And whilst the body grows lavish and the mind complacent
Few dare return to the poetry, the bones in the basement
They tell me to read between the lines, hunt out the allegory
They expect context, theories, authorial assertion
I feel a bit like a mortician dissecting brain tissue
Clinical hands on exposed flesh, coercion
Or perhaps compromise, “death to the author” is equally unfeeling
Project myself onto the antagonist, eek out my own meaning
We’re grappling for the placenta, amongst the seafoam spit
We march blind in the dark long after the candles lit.
The Volta they gasp, epiphanise laugh with us
Close the door, hasp
Join in the merriment
Of parchment and prologues, of decorum and debauchery
They revel hypothesise, forget to supplicate before the augury
And whilst the body grows lavish and the mind complacent
Few dare return to the poetry, the bones in the basement
//
This poem is written by Madeleine Caso who is 16 years old. Born in Hampshire, England, she began writing over the course of the pandemic as a way to feel connected to those around her. In a time when we are all feeling the impacts of isolation, her poetry aims to express our shared struggles and unite us in these trying times. Madeleine is an English Literature and Politics student who uses these subjects to write about big literary concepts through a critical, political lens.
This poem is written by Madeleine Caso who is 16 years old. Born in Hampshire, England, she began writing over the course of the pandemic as a way to feel connected to those around her. In a time when we are all feeling the impacts of isolation, her poetry aims to express our shared struggles and unite us in these trying times. Madeleine is an English Literature and Politics student who uses these subjects to write about big literary concepts through a critical, political lens.