Not my children, not my rats
by Natalie Shaw — our Friday Poem on 18/10/2024
What’s this about? It has an Orwellian feel. We know that the thought police are never the nice guys, so the narrator’s revision doesn’t convince, despite – or more probably because of – the repeat of “perfectly lovable”. Shaw often plays with the surreal and the surprising, and her work is often funny (“cataloguing abilities”) but this is much more than a quirky, amusing poem. It’s dark. It’s a warning. It’s doing exactly what poetry is supposed to do.
Not my children, not my rats
I have revised my views on the thought police:
actually, they are perfectly lovable guys,
perfectly lovable guys just trying
to do their best; not everyone
has the patience or cataloguing abilities
for this challenging work, particularly
during dark times when it is a difficult job
to see even vaguely what is going on. I have always been quick
to judge; now I realise it is a real luxury
that qualified people are here to do the heavy lifting.
Natalie Shaw has been described as “a fake, a fraud and a phoney”. Her pamphlet Dirty Martini (2023) is published by Broken Sleep Books.