Reading

No.14

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Reader
Cyrus Larcombe-Moore
Poet
Recorded at St Mary's Church,
Ottery St Mary, Devon

Artwork
Lucy + Jorge Orta
Raft of the Medusa
Audio-visual installation

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!

It is a true horror poem, and is written in a brilliant way, the rhyming and the alliteration makes your blood run cold. He can play the reader or the listener like a violin. Once you come across it you can never forget it. I heard it the first time when I was 14 years old in my English class at St Joseph's convent school, a very strange place to be introduced to this poem, but our English teacher, Mrs Simpson, was a Protestant and a very good teacher.

She obviously believed Coleridge was a very important poet and 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' a very important poem, and all the nuns in the world weren’t going to stop her.

Marianne Faithfull