We asked the judge of our 2024 Open Poetry Competition, Kathryn Gray, to award the fourth prize to four poems equally. One of these was “Two members of Mary Wollstonecraft’s circle” by Jo Davis.
Kathryn’s comment on this poem was:
“Here’s a poem that beguiled me with its sensuality and sensuousness. Oh, and its rich humour, too. How I long for more playfulness in poetry. The wit of the commentary is superb: Thomas Paine ‘is bending over as if to climb into a bath, or think a revolutionary thought’ and his ‘ass-cheeks’ are ‘pert as common sense’. And what about William Blake’s ‘penis glinting like a compass’? Or the perfection of Newton ‘curled up like an ammonite’? This is absolutely stellar description. The magic of this poem, besides its apposite way of seeing and its delicious serious comedy, lies in the contrast between physicality and intellect, as well as its unashamedly borderline-lustful gaze and the seamless shifts in register – the latter a tremendously difficult feat, as any poet will know. This is how you do ekphrasis with insight and panache.”
Two members of Mary Wollstonecraft’s circle
The marble veins in the hard bulging bicep of Thomas Paine are popping.
It is easier to see him as a father figure, an Everyman, without his clothes.
He is bending over as if to climb into a bath, or think a revolutionary thought,
and the twist in his torso turns the v of his back into a stone calligraphy,
the writer becoming writing, becoming a work of body, and what a body,
ass-cheeks pert as common sense.
*
Bronze arms raised, fingers clasped behind his head, William Blake is full-frontal,
his hips thrust forward, penis glinting like a compass. The definition
in his thighs is remarkable. There is no way he skips leg day.
You could ink up those abs and take relief prints more pristine
than any he made of Newton or the like -- Newton, curled up like an ammonite,
his sensual body tucked inside, his practical fingers figuring out his mind.
Historical note. The practice of honouring key British thinkers with nude monuments began in 2020 with Maggi Hambling’s trailblazing Mary Wollstonecraft Sculpture. Subsequent years saw London thus commemorating six physicists, two prime ministers and fifteen writers, including Maxwell, Churchill and Shakespeare.
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 