White Rose

White Rose

By Tom Pickard b. 1946 Tom Pickard
you gave me a white rose   
put the lamp on the stove   
it caught fire
the I Ching said
thunder above the lake
lightning in Baker Street

switched on the cooker   
and blew a fuse
blue flash
you see
the whole experience   
is electric

Tom Pickard, “White Rose” from Hole in the Wall: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Tom Pickard. Reprinted with the permission of Flood Editions.

Source: Hole in the Wall: New and Selected Poems (Flood Editions, 2002)

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Poet Tom Pickard b. 1946

POET’S REGION England

Subjects Love, Relationships, Romantic Love

Holidays Valentine's Day

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Biography

In impoverished northeastern England, Tom Pickard co-founded and for several years managed Morden Tower, a poetry center situated on a medieval city wall in the industrial sector of Newcastle upon Tyne. As Eric Mottram commented in Primary Sources, there "the finest British and American poets read at a time when they were unheard elsewhere in [England]." Pickard related that in 1984, "Morden Tower celebrated its twentieth year . . .

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SUBJECT Love, Relationships, Romantic Love

POET’S REGION England

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Originally appeared in Poetry magazine.

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