Michael Aiken

The old noble crow

is sick       of wings

and frogs.

Don’t you know that I am groaning?

Worn by the weight

of elaborate plans

relying on the sunrise.

Michael Aiken is a writer living and working in Sydney. His first collection, A Vicious Example (Grand Parade 2014) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Dame Mary Gilmore Prize and the Australian Book Design Awards. In 2016 he was selected as the inaugural Australian Book Review Laureate’s fellow, for which he wrote the book-length poem ‘Satan Repentant’ under the mentorship of David Malouf.