Head Girl

Evie Godfrey2023 Longlist, Opening Up

It’s a twine poem, in which every word is a link to another poem. Every word on that page is also a link to another poem. And so on and so on. It’s fractal, or looping at least. It explodes the vocabulary of the original poem, expands it, tears it apart. The poem is lovingly inspired by photographs of 19th century actresses playing Shakespearean heroes, of dashing girls in breeches holding a sword, of the cult of stockings and kisses created by early fans of Madchen in Uniform. The love can dissipate and expand but it doesn’t disappear.