by Jo Walton
Flocking all over, rising up at a sudden alarm
to settle back in a flutter of wings,
unafraid, beautiful, ubiquitous.
Grey, barred, or brown,
with a preen of glorious pink,
bright-eyed, head cocked, bold.
Descend into the interstices of our lives,
peck round our park benches, strut past our summits,
nest on our ledges, circle our rooftops.
Billing and cooing, pouting and searching,
come down to the hearts of our cities
and be everywhere taken for granted.
—June 24, 2016
Translated from the Original
When they came down to the
Water/shore/spaceport/edge
They embarked and took ship for
The lagoon/lacuna/Lagos/the ledge
The/a sun was occluded/eclipsed
Glinting
There was no doubt, none any more,
Hinting
. . .
In the archipelago/far settlement/sea-carved land,
Only their footprints, dissolving in sand.
—December 15, 2014
Sleepless in New Orleans
The moon has set
and the fucking Pleiades
and I have to be on a train at seven o’clock this morning
but here I am
writing poetry under the covers
as if I am twelve.
I have to tell you that last June
in the front row of a Fringe performance
of Euripides’ Hippolytos
I accepted a blood red cherry from the manicured hand
of a drag queen Aphrodite.
I thought “Take, eat . . .”
and my soul said “You have always been good to me,
Foam-born Peleia
but seriously? Have you noticed I am menopausal
and suited as things are?
You really would surprise me.”
Wouldn’t you think I’d know better?
Clearly, this is her votive city
she must get tired of the pap she is offered
the same masks over and over.
We are from different shores
of the same planet
and speak the same language
and I am here. I do not ask anything
but let’s go to Venice
and Constantinople
and keep talking the stars into a new sky
where maybe words reach.
—February 25, 2013
The Godzilla Sonnets
i) Godzilla vs Shakespeare
Up on the ramparts all await their time
Each heroine, the fools and knaves, each king,
Ready to catch our hearts, the play’s the thing
A cockpit where they arm themselves with rhyme.
The monster tries to hide, but shows through plain,
Behind a frond ripped up with giant claws
We see his scaly hide and gaping jaws
As Birnam tropics come to Dunsinane.
All rally to defend now, each with each,
Juliet with dagger, Richard on a horse,
Dear Hamlet with his poisoned foil of course,
Harry with swords and longbows, at the breach.
Godzilla, shuffling closer, knows what’s what.
Size matters. But then so do prose and plot.
ii) Godzilla in Shakespeare
She was too big to sneak, she couldn’t hide,
She did well at Harfleur, the wall went down,
If Bardolph then got splatted in the town
All well and good, Flewellyn got to ride.
Verona fell out differently, no feud
Of family could stand against those feet
She could go nowhere that required a street
Dancing or love-making, too big, too crude.
When troops were needed, she advanced before,
She sheltered Lear on the blasted heath
She stood outside, or waited underneath,
And lurked before the walls of Elsinore.
She couldn’t seem sincere as Romeo.
As Caliban she really stole the show.
iii) Godzilla Weeps for Baldur
A little Viking boat, with tattered sail,
Frigg, by the curved carved prow, bids everyone
To weep for Baldur, her lost murdered son
To bring him back from Hel, she cannot fail.
She’s what, a radioactive dinosaur?
Destruction manifest, and Japanese?
Frigg begged her, even deigning to say please
And left her sitting weeping by the shore.
Aesir and monsters close beneath the skin
Berserk rampager—Frigg could work with that
She told her what they’d lost, and as they sat
Godzilla wept for Baldur, as for kin.
So what was Baldur that Godzilla cared?
Each cherry-blossom petal that she’d spared.
iv) Godzilla in Love
It is the nightingale and monsters all
Come tripping through the glades of some strange wood
Godzilla sulking, trying to be good
All balconies inevitably fall.
(All right, she stomped Verona really flat.)
But this is different, this is fairy-time,
With transformations, turning on a dime
The size of others, and she longs for that.
Or failing that, some great iambic man,
Scaled up to her and talking like the Bard
They’d stomp together, would that be so hard?
Uncertain, frightened, questions if she can—
Does love change when it alteration find?
She wants someone to love her for her mind.
v) Godzilla at Colonos
Alive she is destruction, people flee
Mouths opened wide in screams before her tread
But that great body when it falls will be
A benediction after she is dead.
She raged and roared, but failed at family,
Her sons wreak devastation, fight and fall,
Her daughters seek to bury them, but see,
One destiny to perish over all.
But once there was an answer she could give
People and monster met in what they knew,
That time’s inexorable, but people live,
And grow and change and die, and monsters too.
So though she threatened life and home and city
The faces hold not terror now, but pity.
—2015
Not a Bio for Wiscon
Jo Walton has run out of eggs and needs to go buy some,
she has no time to write a bio
as she wants to make spanakopita today.
She also wants to write a new chapter
and fix the last one.
Oh yes, she writes stuff,
when people leave her alone to get on with it
and don’t demand bios
and proofreading and interviews
and dinner.
Despite constant interruptions
she has published nine novels
in the last forty-eight years
and started lots of others.
She won the Campbell for Best New Writer in 2002
when she was 38.
She has also written half a ton of poetry
which isn’t surprising as she finds poetry
considerably easier to write
than short bios listing her accomplishments.
She is married, with one (grown up, awesome) son
who lives nearby with his girlfriend and two cats.
She also has lots of friends
who live all over the planet
who she doesn’t see often enough.
She remains confused by punctuation,
“who” and “whom”
> and “that” and “which.”
She cannot sing and has trouble with arithmetic
also, despite living ten years in Montreal
her French still sucks.
Nevertheless her novel Among Others
won a Hugo and a Nebula
so she must be doing something right
at least way back when she wrote it
it’ll probably never work again.
She also won a World Fantasy Award in 2004
for an odd book called Tooth and Claw
in which everyone is dragons.
She comes from South Wales
and identifies ethnically as a Romano-Briton
but she emigrated to Canada in 2002
because it seemed a better place
to stand to build the future.
She blogs about old books on Tor.com
and posts poetry, recipes, and wordcount on her LJ
and is trying to find something to bribe herself with
as a reward for writing a bio
that isn’t chocolate.
Update, February 2016
Since then she has written another four novels
And the one she was interrupted writing a chapter of
My Real Children
won the Tiptree Award,
she also won the Locus Best Non-Fiction for her collection of
blog posts
and her son has broken up with his girlfriend.
She knows it’s a cliché, but tonight’s dinner will be stew,
followed by blackcurrant crumble,
because
she has run out of eggs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Walton has published thirteen novels, most recently Necessity. A fourteenth, Lent, is due out in 2018. She has also published three poetry collections and an essay collection. Walton won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002; the World Fantasy Award for Tooth and Claw in 2004; the Hugo and Nebula awards for Among Others in 2012; and in 2014, the Tiptree Award for My Real Children and the Locus Award for What Makes This Book So Great.
Walton comes from Wales but lives in Montreal, where the food and books are much better. She plans to live to be ninety-nine and to write a book every year.