Jeffery Sugarman

Biography

 

Jeffery Sugarman is an American-born poet who grew up in Florida with alligators, peacocks, and mermaids in a mysterious and swampy landscape bursting with coconut palms, Cuban sounds and cigars. All of which inspire him, and show up in his poems. More recently he's been inspired by Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens, Mark Doty and Carl Phillips, Marie Howe and Louise Glück. He studies with Hannah Lowe, Kathryn Maris and Jacqueline Saphra in London, where he lives with his English husband – without cigars! – in the “unfashionable west-side” of Islington and focuses on writing while volunteering for Poet in the City. His poetry focuses on domestic and familial love; homosexual desire and shame; social exclusion and place; illness and loss, particularly from AIDS. 

Jeffery is a Jerwood/Arvon mentee with Hannah Lowe for 2019-20. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Magma, Finished Creatures, Vada Magazine Online, Here-There Poetry, American Book Review and various design journals. His debut chapbook, Dear Friend(s), is published by The Emma Press (and can be purchased at https://theemmapress.com/shop/dear-friends/).

Photograph of Jeffery, courtesy of Harry Richards Photography

The Poem

Ascent to Orchids in the Morning

I’m leaving he calls down to me,

and I run up from my desk, as I do

most days, to catch him at the door.

Not so fast that I might slip on the stair

or appear too eager; a gentle pace

is an English pace, that’s what I’ve learnt.

I straighten his collar

the way he straightened mine

when we first met, give him a peck

on the cheek and send him off.

Then walk slowly to the top of the house

all lit up with a milky sun,

a small lantern of a room,

a bath, and above it

a skylight, large enough 

to see the stars at night, of this galaxy 

(at least) and beyond. And the orchids.

A dozen of them. They’ve come back,

not perfectly or without exception, but new leaves

and flower stalks beneath, just sprouting,

easily mistaken for aerial roots. So, I’ve blunted a few.

Above the skylight, a row of chimney pots,

their cowls still slowly moving. The morning

is changing. The sky is something not yet

blue, but frames two spring-birds

spiralling headstrong for the ground.

I’ve climbed as far in this Georgian house

from my dungeon mind as I can go. The stairs,

the stars and the birds in love. My English husband

walking out, and later, returning. Chimney cowls

last night howling in a gale: hell laying claim

to the morning. But the morning, it’s mine,

and I can take a bath with orchids. 

Listen

Watch

Photo of Jeffery Sugarman © Harry Richards Photography