New Poetry

As the online edition of our new issue continues, we publish today a poem by National Books Critics Circle Award-winner Sharon Olds. Look out for more work by acclaimed poets with this issue, exclusive to Granta.com.

The Easel

When I build a fire, I feel purposeful –
proud I can unscrew the wing-nuts
from off the rusted bolts, dis-
assembling one of the things my ex
left when he left right left. And laying its
narrow, polished, maple bones
across the fire, providing for updraft –
good. Then by flame-light I see: I am burning
his old easel. How can that be,
after the hours and hours – all told, maybe
weeks, a month of stillness – modelling
for him, our first years together,
smell of acrylic, stretch of treated
canvas. I am burning his left-behind craft,
he who was the first to turn
our family, naked, into art.
What if someone had told me, thirty
years ago: If you give up, now,
wanting to be an artist, he might
love you all your life – just put your
gifts into the heart’s domestic service.
What would I have said? I didn’t even
have an art, it would come to me
from out of our family’s life – what could I have said?

Also online: ‘Mona’s Story’, in which Urvashi Butalia shows us the world of the hijras, communities of transsexuals in India; and an interview with Urvashi Butalia.

Events celebrating the issue begin on 16 May in London and 24 May in New York. See here for full listings.