Laura Sygrove, "Three Poems"

Laura Sygrove is a recent graduate of the Creative Writing MA programme at the University of Leicester. She loves mythology and folklore, horror games and graphic novels, and is currently looking to break into the publishing industry. Her poem ‘IC-4593’ was published on NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory blog in 2021. You can read it here. 

Below, you can read three poems by Laura. 

About My Poems, by Laura Sygrove

These poems are taken from my MA Dissertation, a creative study on the effects of consumerism, and rooted in my experience working in retail and customer service. Consumerism as a system is built upon the backs of the working class – many of us actively participating in the exploitation of others through no fault of our own. Purchasing consumer goods or services in the market is unavoidable, and arguably essential in sustaining a happy and healthy lifestyle under capitalism. 

With these ideas in mind, ‘A Supermarket in Connacht,’ ‘SCO-117,’ and ‘Wood Wide Web’ were composed as short allegories, exploring themes of hospitality, greed and excess, autonomy and compassion. ‘A Supermarket in Connacht’ details the downfall of an ancient Irish warrior-Queen, whilst likening a trip to the grocery store to a kind of spiritual experience (one often encompassed by the phrase ‘retail therapy’); ‘Wood Wide Web’ conveys the idea that we, as consumers, are led, as opposed to being well-informed and in control; while ‘SCO-117’ addresses the role of machinery and technology in the workplace, displacing blame and responsibility onto inanimate objects. 

A Supermarket in Connacht

     I’m a regular at the Empyrean – 

The ollmhargadh down the road –

     I burn as six-wingéd seraphim

clothe my feet, mouth, and nose.

     Like Queen Medb, ruthless

And revered by all – 

     Risk it for that prized stud,

Stand by as men brawl;

     Raise babe and army 

As far as Donegal.

     Home is Éire – 

Where open-air

              spirits roam;

                                  Trace the gibbous moon         

by the cruel light of day,

      Waning       at the summit of Cnoc na Ré – 

I am equal to him if I possess equal fortune.

     Sip black coffee with syrups

And shop-bought jams;

     Climb man-made cairns,

Fall prey to internet scams […]

     You crazy babe, Bathsheba  – 

Indulgent in earthly riches – 

     Suckle forbidden faery fruits,

Rotting figs in pale juices;

     Pinch the flesh 

from fuzzy skins,      Savour pulp fiction 

And trashy magazines;

     Reality TV on livestream.

     Swim out from Galway Bay

to Love Island,

     Make haste and mate

Atop the Celtic moors;

     Pull me aside for a chat – 

Avenge my sister, 

Tit for tat;

     I am felled by a piece of cheese.

SCO-117

           Do you think I am an automaton? – a machine without feelings?

    - Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

     I have as much sovereignty as you – 

As much jurisdiction, and as much purpose!

I am a pillar of industry – 

     What have you to contribute?

I am phenomenal 

     Qualia of consciousness;

Saunter supermarket aisles 

with Psyche, my Soul – 

     A spectre chained to an endless present.

I am fleshless, full-bodied;

Sinewy nuts and bolts – 

     A tightening in my chest 

as you tinker and tarnish.

“Do you wish to continue?”

I only accept card payments, sir – 

Do not burden me further with loose change/  

                                                                    mere pittance. 

You’re all the same!

     You push my buttons,     finger 

                                             my slots,

     Play with parts of me you shouldn’t touch.

Error!!! UNAUTHORISED ACCESS 

~ please insert absolutely nothing here ~

I am the future.

     I insist:     You cannot continue.

                                                                                                

Wood Wide Web

          Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, 

          For thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

- Hebrews 13:2

     Droplets of atropa belladonna 

on eyelids – Emerald iris          

infused with ink black,     And blinded –     

     In anguish, think of me;

Seek sanctuary.

     Surf mycorrhizal markets,

fungal fibres laced with lipids –     Sidestep symbiosis 

                                  and slurp the sugared soil.    

 

     Stop, thief! – Translucent tears 

do wilting flowers weep;

(Ne parles pas, parasitic ghost pipe! – 

     Undead snowdrop! – Feign sleep!)

With bated breath, and tree roots 

                                                       trailing, 

                                           Feel your way – 

                           Hack mycelial networks and infiltrate

the mainframe.

    Brainless mould – More bold than I – 

Traverse the showroom floor with ease – 

     Ankles swathed in yarn-like shackles;

To loosen, soak the knots in LSD.

With tentacles that sift and tend

     to self-service warehouse,     Descend – 

Confide in slime to reach the labyrinth’s end.

Astro-Poetry Competition 2021: The Results and the Poems

As part of the second-year module, Using Stories, we explore some of the ways in which Creative Writing might draw on and explore scientific material. This includes, for example, looking at some of the amazing discoveries by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and using them as starting points for new poems. 

Arising from this, we ran a competition in early 2021, open to all Creative Writing students at the University of Leicester, in which they were asked to submit poems inspired, in some way, by Chandra's findings. You can see the original call for submissions and description of the competition here.

The entries we received were all, in their different ways, wonderful explorations of the fascinating interconnections between Creative Writing and science. It was naturally very hard to select winners and runners-up; but we chose two winners and two 'honourable mentions.' Congratulations to all four writers, and thank you to everyone who submitted poems for the competition.

Here are the results:

Winners

There were two joint winning poems: ‘IC 4593’ by Laura Sygrove, and ‘A New Cosmic Triad of Sound’ by Rebecca Hughes. You can read these poems on NASA Chandra X-Ray's website here.

Honourable Mentions

There were two 'Honourable Mentions': 'A Matter of Life Span' by Lena Elin Jetses, and 'Infant Star' by Isaac Plant. You can read these poems below. 

Lena Elin Jetses is a twenty-year-old English student at the University of Leipzig in Germany, on an exchange at the University of Leicester. She enjoys writing fantasy novels and short stories, preferably at 4am and fuelled by alternative rock music, tea and chocolate. She writes: 'For this poem, the idea was to capture the enthusiasm of scientists trying to understand as much about space as possible. What struck me about the original article ('Oldest Known Objects Are Surprisingly Immature') was the fascination with the fact that age does not equal evolutionary stage for globular clusters. It puts being human beings' lifetime into perspective, and that is what I tried to convey.'

NASA/CXC/Northwestern/ J. Fregeau

A Matter of Life Span

All grown-up and ready to explore, 
humanity jumps straight out of college
into space, the final frontier.
Right outside our earthly door
we hope to find ancient knowledge
in globular clusters far and near.

Those clusters serve as laboratories
where we study on and on
about stars a million times our ages.
As we count x-ray binaries,
we hearken to expert Fregeau, John,
who names the evolutionary stages.

Meanwhile in the Milky Way
those giants waste billions of years away.
Their celestial nurseries
can be found in all galaxies.
We strive to find answers, we strive to be sure;
yet in 9 billion years they never mature.

Isaac Plant is a second-year English student from the north east. He writes: 'The article I read on the formation of protostars ('X-Rays from a Newborn Star Hint at our Sun's Earliest Days') didn't just provide interesting language as part of a found poetry task we did in class, but also contained an interesting analogy for growth. I found the image of this inward collapse and possible destruction being a necessary part of the star's evolution an interesting parallel to concepts of personal growth in which one must risk destroying parts of one's old self to become something new.'

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Aix-Marseille University/N. Grosso et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

Infant Star

Young protostar, beautiful nebula,
Blackhole iris, spiralling disks obscure,
Sending waves, a solar tributary,
Aeons of cosmic flooding to endure,
Conceived in molecular cloud complex,
Solar systems past, broken and reborn,
Atomic mapping joyfully undone,
Universal tapestry newly torn,
Long-awaited stellar evolution,
Light piercing cocoon of dust and gas,
Metamorphosis of millennia,
Stalwart heart of light or glimmer to pass,
A break of the celestial at last,
Life-giving host star or unyielding vast.