JAMES SUTHERLAND-SMITH
POET, TRANSLATOR, CRITIC

Welcome to my website.

Here are my two muses, Viera, my wife and our daughter, Kate.

I have put together my fifth collection, which will appear in Autumn 2008 from Carcanet under the title Popeye in Belgrade. Many of the poems refer to music and use images from classical music particularly from the Baroque era, though not this one:

POPEYE IN BELGRADE

What if Popeye fails to arrive in the nick of time?
Would Bluto know how to fool around with Olive Oil?

“C’mon do yuh woist!” she ululates then sighs
As Bluto drums his fists on the ground, “That’s yuh woist?”

Not that Popeye packs all that much of a punch.
Not a single amorous peck in seventy years

Belying the squeaks and wails of baby Peewee
Undulating like a rapid snail from frame to frame.

“Is smoking that pipe all yuh can do?” Olive never said that.
Popeye never bubbled through his lips an answer in Serbian,

Never the sort to loll butt naked next to the Sava
Shielding his private parts from the rigours of the sun

Though Bluto might be a suitable size and shape
And possessing the right amount of facial hair.

Unfulfilled desires wriggle over the horizon
Where my wife is smuggling spinach into the EU.

“Serbian spinach is unique,” were her parting words.
I tilt a dram of a liquor made from quince,

Popular but not always available
As the clouds take the shape of rubbery limbs

Shimmying in slow motion. I, too, have danced like that
Earning true devotion for once in my life

And the soubriquet, “Snake Hips”, from a lady,
Hungarian, of uncertain hopes and years

Plumper than Olive Oil and whose eyes were not black beads.
In passing she patted my tail gently whispering

“Barking bitches don’t bite especially
When they take out their teeth before they sleep.”