Metaphysical Transformation




When the teacher asked this lithe and curious girl
What she wanted to be when she grew up,
Her reply; a swan.


And in her metamorphosis
She sprouted wings from her arms
Like the roots of leaves;
Feathers replaced her gossamer dress
And her neck grew long
Into a pure white serif ‘S’


And for all that hybrid beauty
She could not help but feel
Sick at her grotesque form;
Drowned as narcissus in his mirrors.
Not quite Kafka’s black carapace horror


Feeling trapped
Like a butterfly in a child’s hands.
Suffering and self destructing.
The sound of the tips of its wings
Brushing against her palms
In a colourful seizure.



Poem by Anthony Prithcard
taken from the book 'MirrorRealms'
available now to order
in all bookstores and online stores.

Copyright Anthony David Pritchard.
Copying this work to another webpage
without author permission is plagiarism.

Book Review by Melissa Lee Houghton of the short review

Lucid surreality, irreality, interspersed beautifully with a flow of connective memories and a sense of time which is neither within the linear, or off-kilter, but of poetic meditation. Lines run and form their own stanzas so that poems are organic in their changing and metamorphosing shapes and forms. Every poem is worth hanging in for, the line that snaps your attention right to where (he) wants it.
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Like a poignant lyric for a forgotten song- there are strands of utter brilliance and genuine intellectual and emotional insight that literally stop dead the reader and force them to ingest the narrative, the pace.
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Anthony does not write highly stylized poetry or traditional verse forms. He doesn’t connect with current literary trends or scream allegiances to any particular schools of writing or literary thought. He nobly publishes and arduously writes through in utter indelible passion and compulsion. He is a twenty-six year old man whose early years have already produced four extensive volumes of poetry. Poetry that lives as you read it, that is now, that is dependant on and forms a strong sense of self, possibly the very thing that keeps the steady calm, attentive and masterful timbre to his words. I have never been in possession of three books which so poignantly and purposefully play out every dream, loss, ambition, fear, transient pathway; longing, love, illness, to map out the very essence of human development; the development of the inner world.
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I am left quite simply stunned, gutted, amazed and glad that these writings exist. I believe that Anthony has in his possession a very well designed brevity for long narrative poetry, of metaphysics, time, fantasy and physical ‘truth’ and sensual longing, and would love to take the opportunity to cheer on a level-headed writer who has not taken the fallen route of attempting to be a ‘learned’ writer or ‘Master of Writing’; that he has not endlessly edited poems into commercially edible nuggets of witticisms and wordplay. I hope that Anthony Pritchard’s books garner many, many readers for this reason as many poetry magazines are suffering from lack of subscriptions or abundance of good material- and each have a house-style to consider, hardly any pay. I do believe that the contemporary poet needs to be regarded more and be more forthcoming with printed volumes from small presses. With a great deal of self-promotion and a network of other intelligent, like-minded writers, a new platform could well be formed of anti-poets. Poets against institutional discipline, elitism, pompous old-hat publications and publishers who are picking out talented but sculpted (by academics) writers, without half as much heart as Anthony Pritchard.

Comments on Anthony Pritchards works

This is one of the best pieces of literature that I have ever set eyes upon in the entirety so far of whatever life I have lived...Imagine for a second standing on a craggy cliff face at night looking into the half gloom - waves crashing and exploding into the air - this is where it took me - true romance It's like a sign to a memory - a fantasy - illusionary reality. Who knows what it is, if I lived it, if I didn't. It doesn't matter. What indicates real poetry - any real inspirational anything, is the ability to inspire others and create meaning - what you create should create for others and be like some grand chain of understanding. You do this daily - moments like wildfires... so close to spiritual, so close to anagogical work that I am fearful to dissect it, to prey on it as anything but the majestic experience that it is...the whole is the sum of its parts, but it is the whole that enthralls me I cannot focus on each admirable instance, but see it simply as the whole piece that it is, in its wonder, in its explosion of feeling and imagination...Hayden Smith

You must be the triumphant poet that we all secretly dream for. Your imagery is refulgent and scintillant, the tenebrous emotion, shadowing gently the movement of the shooting stars and blinking storms. . before I read your work my spirit was unilluminated, and now I feel I belong in a glowing, incandescent dream. I have fallen in love with the way your visions can voyage through softened utopian lands and enter the creation of a crepescular, nightmarish repose. Everything moves so eagerly, yet the emotion immobolizes me until everything is stilled . . even a heart-beat that before reading you would not stand to wilter..........I am in a dream . And I know not of the sharpness, the eagerness, the glacial breeze of the mortal world. Intriguing, beguiling, folding me in the wings of an unearthly flight. The most exquisite things can be seen with the eye or felt with the heart and by contriving such a flawless, creeping sunset sky of work, you have allowed me to do both. The imagery is tender, but sincere and unblemished. And my heart . . well my heart knows not of what has just devoured it. I want to undress and sleep beneath an amaranth sky wrapped in the warmth of me, knowing I can be stilled, perhaps I have just discovered that I am not alone or something. But even if the feeling you have given me is elusive and indefinable, be assured it has reached me and that you are ingenious and brilliant. ~ Rose Foran

"As if the moon was blown like a clockflower" GORGEOUS."in conversation with the street/...ten minutes last forever..." Hypnoticly fascinating; dark, dreamlike & inventively surreal. You possess a unique voice, as individual as each snowflake in the glare of the streetlamp: a poet's poet. The imagery of poetic confetti falling, beautifully and subtly juxtaposed over the snow, is brilliant; an origami voice. "it begins somewhere in the middle where time is on pause" I could not help be recall Thus Spake Zarathustra. "a moment of clarity, vivid as bracelet in the bottom of a pool." =Brilliant metaphor= "Like chalk drawings on the pavement," Suddenly my greydreams are revealed as if from a melting fog from a rainflower. "Like a flower ripped out of the ground we awake from a nightmare." Masterful, you are. The light, being infinite, is perfection itself; 'A sudden burst of sunshine seemed to illumine.' ~Franz Kafka. Provocative & evocative; erudite. "Evocative power over all that is eloquent and expressive in the better soul of man." Graffiti on a New York City subway wall: in this light it shimmers your genius. Bravo! - Jon Lyndon

Oh, this is profoundly felt with an imaginative empathy and a recognized sense of unbelief, that renders this art stunningly exquisite. I feel an intimacy that could only be provoked by such a fine work. Marvellous and sensitively dreamlike; superbly written as if spellbinding glimpses of extroardinary moon beams, that escape me through a glittering happiness. I want to caress this poetry; I want to dance in it with a promising contentment. My footsteps have depressed a golden terrain in this evening, and it is thanks to you. An invention that makes me feel like I have just received a boquet of scarlet flowers with preening heads from an undiscovered lover. You have made me vivid and gleamingly sharp. Thank you ~ Rose Foran

I can't even absorb this. I can't even grasp one line to quote. I feel like my heart has combusted and my brain has turned to mush. This was.. Overwhelmingly colossal. Extremely difficult to read..I will quote you forever. It's amazing how you use words in a certain way, under a certain light that makes every.single.one. of them beautiful. Even the most simple sentences become beyond beauty and pain... I feel emotions that I can't even name or tag into a category. God, your mind is so beautiful. I have goosebumps and my gut is twisting inside out.. My heart has fallen into my socks and my mind.. jesus.. I'm falling apart. I can't comment on the art you've expressed - your staggering words.. All I can comment on is how it makes me feel. I'm sorry I can't do this justice... Thank you. Thankyou, thankyou.. For f**** sake - Thank you. - Amy Buresh


"A Zen master of prose/poetry. Stylish, evocative, exemplary fictions of poetic insight beautifully unbound for the soul, and most wonderfully written, Anth's writings are an exploration of unexpected boundaries that transport the reader between self-discovery and desired possibilities. His is a genius of the transcendent in a travel arrangement of the real, the fantasy and the speculative nature of what never quite seems possible. Strange and disturbing, and most definitely worth the journey into his unknown country..." - Jon Lyndon