Piercings
by Harry Josephine Giles
It took two looks to see him,
head whipped and jaw loosed, silent
moviewise. The boy who broke me in,
my nut, my skin, up, who said a break-
down would do you good. The change
snuck him past me, but: same flesh,
same stride. I called. We spoke.
The quick, smiling chat of two
folk who knew inside each other’s
mouths, but not heads. I looked hard.
The difference wasn’t clear, and then
it was. The lipring that turned
his pout sullen, hot. The jangle
of earrings I’d buried my face in
as he steel-tracked my heavy
shoulders. The scaffold. The sharp,
shocking stud in his busy tongue.
All gone. In the four years since
he hauled me into a lift with
Want to make out?, he’d pulled
out every metal sign, become
employable, less obvious. I’d paid
ten quid in Camden for my first, made
more holes each time I got depressed.
Got inked. He asked, So what do you do now?
From Tonguit. Reproduced with kind permission from Freight Poetry.
Forward Prizes for Poetry
Shortlisted for Best First Collection 2016
Tonguit
Harry Josephine Giles
About Harry Josephine Giles
Harry Josephine Giles (b 1986, Walthamstow) grew up in Orkney and considers themself Orcadian. They trained as a theatre director, but has supported themself creating computer games: both professions feed into their dramatic, often playful, poetry. They say ‘my writing is still rooted in that interest in orality and aurality and in meeting an audience.’ Since winning the BBC Slam championship in 2009, they frequently write and perform their verse in a “magpie” version of Scots; a development which has allowed them to begin ‘to express parts of myself that had been hidden away’.
The decision to write in Scots, which is ‘one movement in this problem of how to keep alive linguistic diversity in the era of globalised English’, indicates Giles’ commitment to radical politics. This is also a hallmark of their previous publications – including Oam, a 2013 pamphlet written as part of a residency at Govanhill baths in Glasgow, from which ‘The Hairdest Man in Govanhill’ is taken.
It is with Tonguit, the collection for which they have been shortlisted, that Giles has begun to move outwards from that position: ‘I had a lot of questions about my identity, my home, my language, my struggle with belonging,’ they say ‘and by the end of the book I felt like I had enough answers to do something new.’
