Ten Poems About Cities

Most of us live in cities, and there is a rich tradition of poems about their tireless hustle and bustle. In Jessica Mookherjee’s lively selection, we find poems that explore the hectic rhythms of day-to-day life in a city, as well as the rather more mysterious character of a city at night – a place where streetlights and “drunken rooftops” create a dreamscape in which anything might happen. Ever present is the sense that a city never stops: "All afternoon labouring geese fly over the city. Cars hoot, sirens fugue. Beneath bank towers, a statue shifts. A man, blue clown, blows two-note whistles for a living.” from ‘Commerce, Madrid, 2012’ by Carola Luther This mini-anthology transports us to cities real and imagined in a delightful kaleidoscope that shimmers and shifts at each rereading. Poems by Suzannah Evans, Andrew Fusek-Peters, Kapka Kassabova, Carola Luther, John McCullough, Jessica Mookherjee, Meryl Pugh, Roger Robinson, James Tate and Sara Teasdale.