An History
By Freya Sacksen
Freya Sacksen is a UK-based poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. They have published a poetry pamphlet in collaboration with Clare Pollard for DIRT Imprint entitled ‘Loops’. Their work can be found in Sidekick Books’ Ten Poets Travel to the Dark Side of the Moon and was part of the poetry/art collaborative event Readings for the Cambridge Poetry Festival 2025. They regularly perform at Cambridge’s monthly open mic CB-1 and help organise the CWC literary event Future Karaoke.
Freya has been awarded an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Anglia Ruskin University. Their poetry embraces storytelling, ecopoetics, liminality and queer identity.
Their current favorite example of the Order Lepidoptera is Greta oto.
An History…
…of all the ways you can fail to let love really touch you
when he told me he wanted apples,
I went to the fields and brought him apples;
and when he told me he wanted wine,
I fetched him grapes and stained my feet;
and when he told me wanted water,
I climbed the mountain to the source
and brought back the river to sate his thirst.
but the orchard inside me bore only cherries.
An History…
…of all the ways you can come to fear love
i would lie on my bed and name
and put into poetry
and put into taxonomical reference books
and put into short stories
and put into cladistic families
and put into novellas and novels and novelletes
and put into phylums
the exact color of his eyes
in photographs.
because every time i met them,
i would look away.
An History…
…of fear
It is an inconstant state,
like the tide going in and out,
swelling and diving;
like my heart beat, the lows, the highs,
patters and tiptoes;
like my feet on tarmac, the strides in the warm,
the winces on the melt.
i am a better poet on the warm.
i am a better poet when i am happy.
maybe that is why.