C A J Williams’ NZ cricket poem

C A J (Chris) Williams (b. 1970) is a Wellington poet that has been in touch with me in the past ten years. He published a book 35 Short Poems (The Buttress Press) in 2016 and was published in Landfall, and my journal broadsheet. He reviewed my book of rugby poems and appeared with his Tana Umaga poem in my booklet Sevens (2020).

Williams has also written on cricket and I sent his poem in to The Cricket Society News Bulletin in 2020.

It’s an experimental form poem about his father and cricket at Lord’s, London. It mentions players like Denis Compton and Don Bradman.

C A J WILLIAMS

At Lord’s, St John’s Wood

my father / & I / sat / down the hill / old father time / behind us / in front of us / where Nugget Miller used to field / out of the way / just to scatter my father / re-told / the time / Nugget & Denis Compton / marched / through the Grace Gates / arm in arm / in dinner suits / then changed / into white fannels / then / tipped / glasses of champagne / & returned / to the day’s play / & Nugget to field / at long leg / the sun / on his back / everyone / wanted to be Nugget / to flick his fringe at the top of his mark / to be the brilliant Brylcreem poster model / to throw the ball back to Bradman when asked to bowl / to shoulder arms first ball clean bowled / & stride off the ground / to a race meeting / they say / he knew / of a secret back door / to Buckingham Palace / & Princess Margaret / blushed / at dinners / & after-match functions / & private room / meetings / when she shook his hand / her eyes / never left him / when she smoked / that / blue-dove smokey intent

Poem © C A J Williams

Check out Williams’ review of my rugby poems at The Reader (Booksellers New Zealand Blog): Sidelights Rugby Poems | 

Williams’ poems were also published in Poetry Notes, Spring 2018: Newsletters | Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa