Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor
Claudia Jowitt and I would be best friends, I just know it
We’d sit in my nanny’s house
on the chipped mint lino and I’d watch her paint
drip toothpaste from piping bags
comb globs of meringue
into stiff pastel quiffs.
We’d lick our teeth and
laugh at all
those
men.
I’d crush crab knees and cockle shells with the
rolling pin
until the room crackled like old records and
Claudia would make street maps out of lichen and hemp, and place a
pearl on every corner.
She’d catch my tongue with flypaper and reel me right in,
reach into my childhood and cover me with buttons,
coral blush,
ribbons like neurons,
purple,
blue,
pink.
Anne
Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor was recently announced as the winner of the 2018 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition, and was the co-winner of the 2017 Monash Prize for Emerging Writers. Her work has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Starling, Turbine|Kapohau, Landfall, Mayhem, Minarets and Mimicry. She writes thanks to the tireless support of some of the best people on this great watery rock.
Aimee-Jane was a part of the LitCrawl x Starling 2018 micro-residency programme, where six young writers were hosted by Wellington galleries over the weekend of 10-11 November to work on a current creative project. Aimee-Jane was in residence at Bartley + Co, where she worked on completing her first collection of poems. ‘Claudia Jowitt and I’ is an ekphrastic piece inspired by Claudia Jowitt’s Across Waters exhibition, which was on display at Bartley + Co during Aimee-Jane’s residency.