Charles G. Lauder, Jr, was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, graduated from Boston University, and has lived in southern Leicestershire since 2000. He is the author of the pamphlets Bleeds (Crystal Clear Creators, 2012) and Camouflaged Beasts (BLER, 2017), as well as the collection The Aesthetics of Breath (V. Press, 2019). His latest pamphlet is Year of the Rat (Blueprint Poetry Press, 2025). From 2015 to 2018, he was the Assistant Editor for The Interpreter’s House, and since 2008, he has run the South Leicestershire Stanza, a poetry writing group affiliated with the Poetry Society. He’s currently working on a second collection. His website is here.
About Year of the Rat
Many of the poems in the pamphlet were written during or just after the lockdowns of 2020–1, and though COVID is never mentioned, its shadow lurks at the poems’ margins, manifesting in a theme of survival, not only physically but also spiritually. Coincidentally (or not?), the year 2020 was the Chinese Year of the Rat. Taoist philosophy underlies the poetry here, including the titular sequence of sonnets, which is about the rats that came to live near our rural home during this time and their attempts to endure, despite predators and harsh weather. Most importantly these poems focus on the significance of family bonds in the dire circumstances of a pandemic.
Many of the poems in the pamphlet were written during or just after the lockdowns of 2020–1, and though COVID is never mentioned, its shadow lurks at the poems’ margins, manifesting in a theme of survival, not only physically but also spiritually. Coincidentally (or not?), the year 2020 was the Chinese Year of the Rat. Taoist philosophy underlies the poetry here, including the titular sequence of sonnets, which is about the rats that came to live near our rural home during this time and their attempts to endure, despite predators and harsh weather. Most importantly these poems focus on the significance of family bonds in the dire circumstances of a pandemic.
From Year of the Rat
September 24th
On the same day the old upright
is busted apart in the kitchen
because they can’t get it out the door.
Hammers and ivory flats and sharps
splintering across the counters and sink.
Long-silent keys cry out, stripped-bare
metal skeleton groans beneath the mallet.
The dog, deaf but feeling the vibrations
of the blows, hides with us in the lounge.
Our old piano tuner sounded the death knell
months ago: this Weinard over a century old
didn’t have long to live: Piano makers were once
all over London, names no one remembers.
Pre-war survivors sell for a song on eBay,
ours having lived in a church hall for years,
then a damp barn, before the farmer
toted it here on his tractor, smoothly rolling
into our home, now refusing to leave.
On this same day the baby grand is tuned,
previously owned by an in-law and willed
to her priest but he was already in a home.
Elvis the mover had to remove a closet door
to get it inside our house. The piano tuner
turning up today is young, a jazz musician
by night. As if finding a lost soul a new home,
he cocks an ear, taps a few keys, sprinkles out
notes, then when satisfied he plays.
Autumn leaves cover our drive
and fill our dining room.
from The Year of the Rat
We try to inventory them—amongst
the chickens, beneath the duck hutch,
two in the woodshed, one in the hedge
scampering under the gate to the compost
(and tunnelling through the straw
in the greenhouse?)—compared to the dead
found beneath the dining table
or in the cat’s bowl, bodies too cumbersome
to be dragged upstairs and left beside the bed.
Sometimes it’s only a heart or liver,
sometimes the head is missing, the rest
too big a meal. Like censuses of old,
we only count the heads of households.
No telling how many pups they’re feeding.
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