Chloe Yates: a poem
River Child An inky blue night, Grandmother moon is full and bright, the small girl sways and the river rages. Little doll clutched...
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ONE HAND CLAPPING
Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive #2
Leaving Early My Love, tonight Fionnuala is your nurse. You'll hear her voice sing-song around the ward lifting a wing at the shore of...
Nkateko Masinga: a poem
Escape “no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Warsan Shire ("Home") The shame you bear is exile. Even the borders bare...
Ben Morgan: a poem
Poems from The Book of Baba Yaga Author's note Baba Yaga is the Russian equivalent of the witch from Grimm's fairytales. She turns up in...
Cynthia Manick: a poem
What's Passed Down In The Making Sometimes I smile just like my mother, as if the skin and gums remember the day I was born, between...
Mehvash Amin: a poem
The Higgs Boson I move tremendously, though I am small. They had to build a circuit larger than amphitheaters just so I could collide...
Louise Peterkin: a poem
Brazil Summer as thick as foliage, the city in waves, haze; rank, sweet bins. Through neglect or lack of imperative, I'm overgrown like a...
Steve Shepherd: a poem
Photograph by Steve Shepherd coincidentally, parts I - III I. not a believer, but I bought a book of poems and swooned at a coincidence....
Yvonne Reddick: a poem
In Oils 1 Between fjords and the Firth, the rig whirred from its crown-block to the pit of its possum belly – my father left at dawn to...
Alice Hiller: a poem
embedded she lies under her bed with her nose almost touching the dry sacking. it smells of dusty wood. she counts rusted nail...
Olaewe David Opeyemi: a poem
An Insider's Note on Love What some call love is a badly brewed wine; a cobweb holding you captive; a field of mire holding your murky...
Elena Croitoru: a poem
Changes Two countries ago, mother spread like the horizon. Immutable. She is now crayoned in sepia ink. The borders have shrunk her. Must...
Lizzie Alblas: a poem
Mistress Moor You breathe with her, the hills like lungs, feather-light heather's olive bronchioles and fractured alveoli scattered over...
June Wentland: a poem
The Fine Print (TV programmes, online courses, news feeds and feedback sheets) Write down what you think you understand, scrutinise your...
Marion Tracy: a poem
The Sleeper What can she see behind her eyelids, is it rapid skies, galaxies on fire? Can she hear voices on the other side of the ward,...
Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive
Flight radar From the top of the Shard the view unfolds down the Thames to the sea, the city laid by a trick of sight vertically in front...
Alan Humm: a poem
Photograph by Richard Helyar Rhythm Yes, we were right to tell him no. He was unnuanced, slung in a stooping habit between the crossbeam...
Cynthia Manick: a poem
I Could Be a Boxer I have a history of growing wisdom teeth, parting my gums like persimmon fruit and making it look easy. Like bright...
June Wentland: a poem
The Playwright's House To achieve déjà vu in a dream you should sleep in an unfamiliar room – the pungency of mint on fingertips, a smear...
Nkateko Masinga: a poem
the language of blood/rooi taal the moon, a sliver of itself tonight, ‘n stuk in a tongue I had to cut out of my mouth, round and...
Maya Jewell Zeller: a poem
The Hyena When I was best friends with a debutante I often ate maids' faces. Leonora didn't know, after the first, and I'm not sure she...
Fran Lock: a poem
Sid James at the Poetry Society Cor blimey! If you're wearing those clothes for a bet, you've won. If you're wearing that face, and the...
Nixi Schroeder: a poem
love at the end of the world, part 2 there's a promise in the space between your breath and mine; an intimacy of mist, sheltered from the...
Pascale Petit: a poem
Photograph by Biplap Hazra Prize Photograph And this wild elephant, crossing State Highway 9 – his footprints lakes for dragonflies and...
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