Thanks Mayor Brown, thanks to the City of London, and thanks to the London Arts Council for creating and funding this position. Finally, thanks to all of you who have come today. I see representatives here from London Poetry Slam, London Open Mic, and Poetry London—I am so grateful that you are here for this announcement.
I am thrilled and excited to be named Poet Laureate for the City of London. I want to begin by acknowledging the hard work, devotion and successes of my predecessor, The City of London’s first Poet Laureate, Penn Kemp. The first poem I ever published was part of a program called Poetry in Motion, a program Penn created in her time as the Poet Laureate. Poetry in Motion was a poetry competition that invited submission for poems that would be published on city busses. My poem was one of 50 poems chosen and I remember quite distinctly meeting Penn soon after. She said “you are a poet—keep writing” This was a very important moment for me and it gives me a great deal of appreciation for how this position can be used to reach out to artists and would-be artists to help foster and encourage their development.
This is an exciting time to be a Londoner; there is an energy and dynamism in this town and it is being felt nowhere more keenly than in the Arts. I look forward to using the position of Poet Laureate to not only champion artists and arts institutions in this city, but I also want to focus on projects that build and encourage inclusiveness, diversity and collaboration in our city. The arts are for everybody. The arts can help us think through what we as citizens collectively value, and thus the arts can facilitate engagement with the civic process—giving us ways to think creatively about how we want to build and shape this city we share.
To this end, I’d like to conclude with a poem that is inspired by my love and concern for one of London’s most defining natural features---the Thames River, or Antler River as it was and is known to First nations groups whose traditional lands, the river runs through.
Trash Fish
In April, the carp return to Wellington Bridge.
Lumbering mud barges, they dredge the muck,
sub-terminal mouths shaped like the Scream of Nature--
they munch tasty bits of crud, sending up plumes of silt
like spice harvesters on a watery Dune.
Saturday six-pack anglers sit under the bridge,
flick cigarette butts into the river and wait
for the bobber to dive. The ponderous pull
of a hooked carp is hardly sport—landing
one is like lifting a sleeping infant out of a car seat.
The man hoists his catch for his toddler to see.
Spent, the fish musters one mechanic convulsion and falls on some rocks.
The man kicks at it and it slaps back into the water.
Too late, too battered, it flounders about in the shallows gasping--
capsized like a Carnival Cruise.
The cars rush overhead; home from the market, hemp
bags stuffed with tilapia, trout, farm fresh salmon, line-caught halibut.
The fishermen beneath crack their last tall boys, the osprey
and heron bide their time, and the carp under Wellington Bridge
hunch against the current—their teeth in their throats--
and continue to pack on the pounds.
The London Arts Council's biography of Tom Cull
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Comments
Brad Shiell · Friends with Tom Cull
Thomas I looked up on google what your role is as poet laureate and you came up on Google ! The girls in the office think you are "hot " ! You now have a following in Australia !
Like · Reply · 2 · 11 hrs
Tom Cull Thanks Brad. the photographer used a special lens called "hot in australia"
Like · Reply · 34 mins
Debra Franke Way to go Tom Tom Cull--what wonderful news!
Like · Reply · 11 hrs
Tom Cull Thanks Debra Franke!
Like · Reply · 32 mins
Cornelia Hoogland Congrats Tom, enjoy the postition!
Like · Reply · 10 hrs
Tom Cull Thanks Cornelia!
Like · Reply · 33 mins
Patricia Black Great poem Tom; great cause; We do have Poetry in Motion in common.
Like · Reply · 10 hrs
Tom Cull Fantastic! That was a fun program. Guess I'd better get to work!
Like · Reply · 32 mins
Anna Yin Congratulations!
Like · Reply · 2 hrs