16 June 2020

Poem of the Week: 'Faraway Love' by Nina Mingya Powles

Posted by the Bookshop


Nina Mingya Powles is a writer and zinemaker from Aotearoa New Zealand, living in London. She is the author of two poetry collections, Luminescent (2017) and Magnolia, 木蘭 (2020), and a memoir, Tiny Moons (2020). She is the founding editor of the small press Bitter Melon.

    

Faraway Love

    

          Tate Gallery description of Faraway Love by Agnes Martin (1999, acrylic and graphite on canvas)

    

faraway love is a five-foot square

                overpainted in light blue          wavering

    

faraway love is made of layers of white

                                    subsequent layers peel away        revealing luminous air

    

faraway love is where blue escapes under the lines

    

faraway love is a reversal of the traditional notions of work

    

faraway love is floating across a pale field

            beneath a particular hue of sky

    

faraway love is strong, persistently irregular; it has a hand-drawn quality

an imperfect line traced over the surface

    

faraway love is translucent in the desert

    

faraway love is present in light-reflecting segments

            into which she pressed lengths of shuddering

                                                    some fingerprints still visible