Timothy Adès
Not longlisted by magnificent Magma magazine, 2026. I rarely write an untranslated poem - but see below.
Magma Antarctic Poem
In 1950 at boarding-school
The eight-year-olds’ dorm was ‘Captain Scott’
One day on a walk I got lost in the snow
Tardy getting my walking shoes
They were glad to see me again
Put me to thaw in the drying-room
Later they taught me Latin verse
‘Rome goes conquering through the snows
through the eternal Decembers
through storm/winter once insolent.’
Fool! That’s all I remember
That was my earliest poem in print.
Part of it is a translation of my Latin words, in Horace's alcaic metre:
"it Roma victrix per medias nives,
victrix per aeternas Decembres,
perque hiemem prius insolentem."
