What is A Poetry Archive ?

Every poet has a beginning. A Poetry Archive Volume 1 is Frank Prem’s — a record of becoming, voice-finding, and heart-on-page.

In the A Poetry Archive Series, Frank Prem is locating, preparing and storing the primary source documents that have shaped his life as a poet and his development as a writer.

A Poetry Archive – Volume 1

A Poetry Archive Volume 1 begins the process of collecting Frank Prem’s earliest accomplished poetry. Volume 1 is the first of two collections of the work created between 1998 – 2003, and reveals the emergence of a distinctive poetic voice, and exploring the questions that shape every poet’s journey:

What do you write when you are learning to be a poet?
What do you not write?
Is there a breath of air taken that doesn’t contain a poem buried within it?

Welcome to Frank Prem’s A Poetry Archive series.

Look Inside

lord this is earth
I am alone too far from
water-blue we look
from where you gaze on us

we are that colour
not only sky above
but there’s a sea somewhere
that’s running too

I watch to try to see you
in between
the picture-faces made by clouds
they’re only distorted scenes
only suggestions
if I turn my head
I cannot find you there

perhaps in water
underneath the ocean swirl
I hold my breath and open eyes
once to glimpse
a gliding ray

was it you . . .