Explore the poem

Maren is the name of Mick Imlah’s partner, whom he met while working at The Times Literary Supplement. This poem is one of a few personal poems included in his collection The Lost Leader, which was published a year before Imlah died.

The poem, a direct address to Maren, starts with admiration of her competitive spirit ‘like Atalanta’. Imlah alludes to his partner’s German heritage through the words ‘Schoeness’, ‘Boetian’, ‘Lower Franconia’ and later the German plane the ‘Focke-Wulf’. His own Scottish background is captured in ‘Caledonian bore’, while the playful references to battling planes continue with the allusion to his ‘Spit’ [fire]. There is a gentle humour and humility in the race that is described. Imlah writes self-deprecatingly and knows that Maren ‘could have romped ahead’.

The direct address, the personal references and almost secret language create a sense of looking in on an intimate relationship that, when this poem was published, had a very real sense of ‘an end in view’.

Notice how half‑rhymes throughout the poem seem to build up towards the closer rhyme of the final two lines. Consider how this might reflect the relationship. Is ‘another orbit’ love, bliss, death or something else?

About Mick Imlah

Mick Imlah published only two collections of poetry during his lifetime: Birthmarks in 1998 and The Lost Leader in 2008, which won the Forward Prize for Best Collection.

Imlah was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, but when he was ten the family moved south to Kent and he was educated at Dulwich College and then Oxford, where he was part of an influential circle of writers. He later edited the Poetry Review and worked as poetry editor for The Times Literary Supplement for many years. He continued to work in the final stages of the motor neurone disease from which he died in 2009.

After Birthmarks, Imlah published only occasional poems in the TLS for many years, before his ambitious, coherent, subtle and tender collection The Lost Leader confirmed his reputation as one of the finest poets of his generation. His poetry is characterized by a bleak fatalism, inventiveness and ironic intelligence.