24 Ways of Seeing Stars
By Penny Boxall
In Estonian grammar, there are 24 ways of arranging the concepts ‘stars’ ‘were seen’ ‘often’ ‘in the sky’ into a sentence, each
~ Museum label, Estonian National Museum
with a subtly different meaning.
The stars were seen often in the sky.
Often the stars were seen in the sky.
In the sky the stars were often seen.
Often we saw starred skies.
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The skies starred down. (5)
Stars seen in the softening river,
Stars seen in the soothed sand.
Smooth, smooth was the sky.
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The skies stared us down.
That night the sky starred us. (10)
Sky: a many-starred review...
O the stars then! –
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we saw them, we saw them;
they saw us drifting,
and how they were seen: (15)
often, often, often, often, often.
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Stars when we closed our eyes;
stars when we opened them.
Something strange and starry, then,
offered by the sky; (20)
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something held half-open;
ourselves seeming startling, other;
something for us to hold, after;
something starting, starting, starting.
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Penny Boxall is a poet, children’s writer, and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow who is interested in the poetry of museums. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing from UEA (Norwich), she won the 2016 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award with her debut collection, Ship of the Line. Her fourth poetry book, The Curiosities, was published in 2024. She was 2023/4 writer-in-residence at the University of Oxford’s Wytham Woods and (in 2019) Visiting Research Fellow in the Creative Arts at Merton College, Oxford. She has held residencies in the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, Estonia, Poland, Iceland, Norway and Latvia. Her debut novel for children, Letty and the Mystery of the Golden Thread (Puffin), is set in the 18th century and was Blackwell’s Book of the Month. She has collaborated with artists Naoko Matsubara and Sally Dod, writer Maarja Pärtna, composers Liis Ring and Jane Boxall, and filmmaker Bevis Bowden.