This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Liz Lochhead’s debut collection, Memo for Spring. Last month we published a brand new edition with an exclusive introduction from Ali Smith, and the poems are just as relevant today as they were fifty years ago. Our poem of the week is ‘Memo to myself for Spring’.

Memo to myself for Spring
April
April first you must fool me
I am no longer
anybody’s fool.
I have danced with too many
velvet tongued men.
I have seen too many
plaster effigies of saints
for faith to mean much.
Hope
is treacherous
and much to be guarded against in April.
I refuse to put out with
any more charity –
I won’t be as mad as March in April.
April you confidence trickster,
you very practical
practical joker –
your clichéd burgeoning and budding
calculated
to set me wandering in a forest of cosmetic counters’
lyric poetry.
You urge me,
buy a lipstick
treat yourself to a new dress
try again.
But April first you must fool me.
April
I fear you
May.
from Memo for Spring by Liz Lochhead