ADVICE Poem by Sinéad Morrissey

You think it ugly: drawing lines with a knife
Down the backs of those writers we exist to dislike. But it's life.

One is disadvantaged by illustrious company
Left somehow undivided. Divide it with animosity.

Don't be proud -
Viciousness in poetry isn't frowned on, it's allowed.

Big fish in a big sea shrink proportionately.
Stake out your territory

With stone walls, steamrollers, venomous spit
From the throat of a luminous nightflower. Gerrymander it.