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ONE HAND CLAPPING
Lily Thomson: a poem
I Dream Of Rome Mildewed roof, thatched ceiling, A house of concerted promises where cracked limbs are cracked for kneeling. I could just...
Ben Morgan: a poem
Darkness Julian of Norwich (1343 - after 1416) was an English anchorite who wrote the earliest surviving book by a woman in the English...
Maggie Sawkins: a poem
Red Geranium on an Isolation Ward She knew how to die – the earth around her stem was so dry it refused the water we poured there and...
Phil Miller: a poem
Withershins In the village of Dent in Cumbria, a vampire is said to be buried in the church graveyard. By this light, the faultline is...
Steve Shepherd: two poems
bird dog he loved dogs but after his lurcher died with a cold eye my father shifted his affection to the magpies in the garden. he fed...
William Thompson: a poem
Apple Not from a supermarket, gleaming like a snooker ball. This one's like pale green wax. It buckles near the stem, has the odd...
Oz Hardwick: a poem
Base Notes I've reached that age where I figure I may as well just eat what I want; and what I want more than anything is silence, so I...
P.W. Bridgman: a poem
Benedizione You protect your face against a sudden gust of rain with the silk scarf that I found for you in Vicenza, all those years ago,...
Daniel Johnson: a poem
Fall My father rakes the lawn, and I am small. I kick and toss the thin, dry season while he works, the rake's wide head a big black wing...
Chris Rice: a poem
Brief Encounter The first night you sat nursing a sick kitten on my balcony. The second, you swam naked off the beach at Montazah. I...
Dorothy Lune: a poem
Once Communal After "My table was communal, until it wasn't" (graphite on paper 2020) by Isabella Karina Hottest January on record. Stray...
Agnes Marton: a poem
The key is lost by default not by the door You gave names to my toes: on the left, Almondino, Breadcrumbs, Grinch, Joplin, Prideling;...
Tess Jolly: a poem
The Aftermath Today the moon holds out for a few more seconds and the nightingales open their beaks wider to sing and the wasps calibrate...
Angela Arnold: a poem
Dancing to Different Tunes Scrubbed vacuum: the notstuff notcluttering; indwelling ghosts of possibilities in this space; rarities of...
Ciaran McDermott: a poem
Chasing Light How old when it first sang your name as clear as the ring of polished glass, Vincent? Were you yet a pale boy stalking the...
Marilyn Francis: a poem
Wasps ...I cannot persuade myself to believe that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designed and created... Charles Darwin It's...
Rosie Jackson: a poem
Ancrene Wisse* Not the first day. She's too full of the novelty of dying. Nor the second, when pilgrims bring her fresh-baked bread, the...
Jenny Mitchell
Winter Fireflies Red tinsel cannot make the Christmas tree a bright hibiscus on sun-dappled soil. Buds formed with fuchsia baubles can't...
Michael Farry: two poems
Epiphany Look, it's hardly worth their while to appear in the dim background for this single day, but, being male, they make the most of...
Vikki C: a poem
Death's Bright Approximations I'm the one who never forgets the curse of it, un-metaphorically; what is imposed on the senses. The...
Philippe Jaccottet: a poem
All the wheat is ablaze and the brief skylark a fragment rising from the fire. It scales all the levels of the air only because the...
Jane Zwart: a poem
I drive to prison where the tallest man in class speaks of children who trip and stand up unhurt and do not cry until they see broken...
Zoë Green: a poem
Dew Point I always thought that if you were twenty years younger and I as many older – well, anyway there was salt on the air and little...
Jo Balmer: a poem
©Research & Cultural Collections, University of Birmingham and the Provost & Fellows of Eton College. The Fingers ( Grave amulet, late...
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