Cavorting with Time

Cavorting with Time is a series of poems about female ageing and mortality. Jacqui Malins shares them here as a work in progress, a script that will develop and mature over time, gathering notes and annotations with each new presentation. She has performed variations of it solo, with musical accompaniment, and now it performs on the page.

In this sequence of poems, Jacqui Malins negotiates and

renegotiates her relationship with time and its effects on the body

and mind. Time is a complex presence: variously a musician, a

dance partner, a tattooist, an adversary to be gripped and wrestled,

the turner of a cosmic crankhandle, a pair of cupped hands waiting

to catch us at the end of consciousness, and more. Malins bears

clear-eyed and nuanced witness to the ravages and caresses of our

constant companion, ‘Time, our sister’ while gazing calmly at

‘Death, who walks with her.’ An experience you will not forget.

Melinda Smith

Winner, 2014 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry