PBS: Petit Pascale

Contacts

Getting published

About PBS

Information for publishers

		Home		Poetry & schools		Poetry & reading groups		PBS projects		Children's Poetry

Links

Pascale Petit
The Zoo Father Seren £6.95

	The relationship between a daughter and her dying father is at the heart of The Zoo Father by Pascale Petit. A whole series of poems explore their painful shared history, using the poet’s experiences of life in the Venezuelan Amazon to illuminate this personal drama. This coming together of two worlds is remarkable – a visit to a therapist is transformed by a vision of a wasps’ nest; the concentrated imagery of a lungfish creates a picture of her father. Although rooted in real experiences, this is poetry that is deeply, wonderfully imaginative. Click here to return to the list of Next Generation Poets

During the Eclipse

My father is breathing through
an oxygen machine,

only one branch left
in his lungs.

During the eclipse it flowers.
The flower has a corona

and for once, it’s safe
to look at his dangerous light.

Dapple plays over his body
from the tree outside the window.

Crescent suns dance on his skin,
bathing him in lustral waters.

from The Zoo Father

Biography
Pascale Petit was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art, has travelled extensively in the Venezuelan Amazon and is poetry editor of Poetry London. She was shortlisted for a Forward Best Single Poem Prize in 2000, and in 2001 received a New London Writers’ Award and an Arts Council of England Writers’ Award. Her second collection, The Zoo Father, was shortlisted for the 2001 T.S.Eliot Prize.