London Grip New Poetry – Spring 2023

*

The Spring 2023 issue of London Grip New Poetry features:

*Jane Frank *Julia Duke *Luigi Coppola *Lara Frankena *Wendy Klein *Sarah James
*Caleb Murdock *Tony Dawson *John Harvey *Peter Devonald *Myra Schneider
*Kelly Davis *Edmund Prestwich *Kevin McManus *Oliver Dixon *Annabelle Markwick-Staff
*Barry Smith *Tom Phillips *Kurt Luchs *David S Lorello *Fred Johnston
*Donald Wetherick *Pamela Job *Vika Gusak *Jane Simpson *Dick Jones
*Abdul Karim Al-Ahmad *Ben Banyard *Leona Gom *Megan Jennings *Jill Harris
*John Short *Roy Duffield *Nolo Segundo *Frederick Pollack *Sally Michaelson
*Lynn White *Kathleen McPhilemy *Cáit O’Neill McCullagh *Fizza Abbas

Copyright of all poems remains with the contributors.
Biographical notes on contributors can be found here

London Grip New Poetry appears early in March, June, September & December

A printer-friendly version of this issue can be found at LG new poetry Spring 2023

SUBMISSIONS: please send up to THREE poems plus a brief bio to poetry@londongrip.co.uk
Poems should be in a SINGLE Word attachment or else included in the message body
Submission windows are: December-January, March-April, June-July & September-October

Editor’s notes

Our readers may observe that the word “because” occurs a great many times in this issue. Perhaps poets are more interested in questions beginning with why than in those that start with who or how and which preoccupy Lieutenant  Frank Columbo in the poem by Ben Banyard on page 13.

 A poet’s “because” can either be a fresh attempt  to account for the world we find ourselves in or else an extract from an existing explanation by some (probably self-appointed) establishment body which is quoted for the purpose of critiquing it.  Either way, the many subsequent instances of “because” are indicative of London Grip’s preference for poems which encourage readers to think about the human condition (sometimes by addressing it from a rather oblique angle). We do not of course aim to tell readers what to think.

Perversely – or should that be obliquely? – the issue begins with poems featuring animals; but the human connections and parallels are also in plain sight.  After that it’s pretty well people all the way and we find them negotiating relationships, mortality and the meaning of life with varying degrees of success.  A now-defunct newspaper used to claim that all human life is there within its pages. While stepping back from making a too-extravagant boast, we hope our readers will find  at least a few worthwhile insights in the poems which follow.

Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
London Grip poetry editor
Forward to first poet

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Jane Frank: Recollections of the last Male Northern White Rhinoceros 
 
We have almost all migrated to a lush savanna of the imagination 
where there is no need to treat nosebleeds, strokes, convulsions, 
fevers, or sell jewellery and dagger handles. Now we are here, some 
 
spare a thought for our square lips, broad chests, convivial family  
lives that spanned millennia. My eyesight was always poor and my  
memory of the serene grasslands has now almost faded: the jackal- 
 
berry and acacia, the asters and blazing stars, golden rods and wild  
indigo, the sensation of purple needle grass against my slate hide as  
I strolled the floodplains. What I can’t forget or forgive are the night  
 
vision scopes, the silenced weapons, the helicopters scarring flawless  
skies. Before I crossed the last wide brown river I appreciated the  
Tinder account set up for me despite it being too late for love. Who  
 
knows? IVF may return us from the far bank, or as hybrids with rhinos  
from the south or as clones. You’ve frozen our velvet tissues and  
sperm and ooeytes, but isn’t it best to remember us as the ones who 
 
had to fall through time so others can graze the lands of coneflower  
and psoralea, clover? Lurch in cool mud under a red forever sun.  

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Julia Duke: Even the Pig’s Content
From the Trés Riches Heures du Duc de Berry – November

It was a long shot
the ball snaking into the undergrowth.
He whistled for the dog to retrieve it.
The dog sat.

He waved his arms, shouted a bit.

Peasants ran everywhere,
peasants foraging under the trees,
peasants raking the shrubbery, 
peasants worried for their lives
if the ball was not found.

The Duke waved his arms.

Even the pigs, 
pigs too old for truffling      
content to do his bidding,
truffling trifles,
snuffling truffles,

seeing if they could turn up a lost ball.

The upper classes are like that 
no matter what their birth sign,
creating a song,     
doing a toddler dance,
throwing a wobbly 
when they’ve lost their balls.

The dog looked on 
with no comment.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Luigi Coppola: Buddy Came Back From Outer Space And Buddy Could Talk
 
When he barked an articulate ‘Thank you,’
after having his helmet removed, given a rub
behind the ears and told what a good boy he was,
the room erupted with gasps and cries and tears.
 
The next few days were a mix of treats and tests.
Every letter stated, a biscuit. Every noun named,
a belly rub. Every complete sentence, another
squeaky toy added to the pile.
 
They asked him simple maths questions
and he gave them the meaning of infinity.
They showed him a diagram of the human body
and he deciphered every part, cured every illness.
They asked him if there was a God
and he whispered a truth.
 
A month later, the first interview. The cameras
and microphones jostled for space at his collar
and they asked about his life, how it had changed,
what space was like and if he had anything
he wanted to tell the listeners:
 
‘My best friends, don’t let the fleas eat away
at our skin. Throw sticks instead of balls.
I’m happy with the scraps. Keep the air
for our walks clean. Make sure the puddle
I jump in is just water. Let us play together
instead of dogfight. For I have seen
the Earth as a blue droplet in a vast bowl
and it is beautiful.’

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Lara Frankena: The Poet Hires a Chemical Toilet

On the back of a flatbed truck is a sight 
I never thought I’d see after 31st January;
I’d tried Toilets+, Simply Loos and Premier Flush,
but only EuroLoo had a next-day drop,
with weekly servicing and bog roll to boot.
From a safe distance of two metres I ask,
How has business been post-Brexit?
My husband thinks I’m taking the piss 
but the service driver doesn’t miss a beat. 
What with Covid and all the pub gardens
last summer, it’s been good. As he singlehandedly 
tips it over the low brick wall edging our garden
I consider the plastic cubicle; its blue door faces 
buffeting winds. I ask, Is it likely to blow over?
No, he assures me, It’s not going anywhere. 
So I sit at my desk in front of the bay window
to watch a particularly robust gust hit the EuroLoo …
We rush outdoors to right it. The EuroLoo, thankfully, 
is unharmed, and the remnants of our fence
preserved our neighbours from invasion. 
I unstake roses to pin the commode down 
adding a 60-litre bag of bark mulch for ballast.
In Covid times, an outdoor toilet is an attractive
proposition, so we padlock it against interlopers.
When the scaffolders ask for the combination
my husband replies, Battle of Hastings, though 
the bloke who removed our defunct cooker
required some assistance, being eight centuries off.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Wendy Klein: Mending the Fence 
After Robert Frost

Courtesy of Storm Eunice, our fence
is down, wooden panels split,
sagging, a forlorn aftermath,

but today the workers have arrived
to put it to rights, a burly bloke
with a front tooth missing, 

and a hearty laugh, his companion,
a boy, half-grown, looking to learn
the craft, jumping to carry
 
mugs of coffee to fuel the process,
but out-faced by an out-sized bag
of cement. It all goes quickly,

the fallen panels erected, one-by-one,
reinstating the boundary between us
and our neighbour, who will pay

her share – a good neighbour. So why
the haste to restore the fence 
that divides us? A question 

we hesitate to ask aloud, the motif
of the territorial imperative,
so firmly entrenched in history,

so deftly addressed in poetry. 
What are we fencing in or fencing out?
We both love our dogs, share 

our pride in their good nature,
their beauty, raise a glass together. 
Something there is that doesn’t love a fence,

that wants it down, says Frost, so why
this surge of relief as the gap is closed
each board nailed firmly in place

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Sarah James: The Swan

Fingers and wrists aching, Betty origamis
another towel into a lopsided swan. Arthritis
has slowed every task she used to fly through.

Phil’s knees too aren’t what they were, up 
and down stairs and ladders, changing bulbs, 
fixing curtain rails and bathroom fittings.

At 78, they should have packed this in.
Still, only twelve guest rooms to see to,
each kept spotless, their ‘home from home’ feel

embellished by small flourishes of dated
elegance. Just enough income, most weeks,
for a careful couple to scrape by on.

Their skeleton staff are a similar age.
Or college kids like their grandchildren,
staying only as long as it takes to get a place

at uni or move away for a proper job – 
city-centre shopwork, cubicle-office filing
or a call-centre with loud neon signs.

The wild, remote and romantic highlands
aren’t all they used to be, not what
Phil and Betty’s guests believe, escaping back

to 24-7 everything, instant click-call uber	
and the fast food on every corner delivered free
to more addresses than their postman’s round. 

Betty fans out her last swan’s wings. She dreams 
of retiring to a small beachside bungalow,
warmly windswept and without a hill in sight. 


Sarah James: Lazy Days Retirement Home

Liz is busy knitting, while dear Kwasi
is counting up his pennies, tallying
a different total every time.

Membership is elite: those let in must hold 
onto big pensions, but not their posts; 
their stay here is likewise temporary.

As she purls one, Liz fumbles 
and drops another stitch; Kwasi’s tower 
of coins falls. It doesn’t matter –  

they’ll keep warm whatever the cost
of gas. When the Big Ben replica
on the mantelpiece chimes ten,

the members all yawn, and somebody, 
whose name everyone has forgotten, 
gets up to turn off the news. 

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Caleb Murdock: Becoming a Sweetie

When my hair turned gray,
waitresses started to call me
“sweetie” and “dear”, not
the respect I thought a great
lion of letters should get,
or the arrogant ass most
people took that to mean.
But the lion was glad to take
a break from his kingly duties,
and the ass was thankful

for a better disguise.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Tony Dawson: Tailgating Time

I’ve been moving steadily through life
for more than eighty years now,
occasionally breaking the speed limit,
in my youth, of course, only to slow down 
later, dawdling, allowing time to pass.
But time doesn’t really pass anyone.
It’s a myth. It’s trying to catch you up,
drawing inexorably closer and closer.
Suddenly, Andy Marvell’s wingèd chariot
has become a tailgating pickup truck
like the type you see in the movies
driven by some redneck intent on
pushing me off the road into the ditch.
Why does Time insist on harassing the old?

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

John Harvey: On Reading Peter Sansom’s “Lanyard” I

This isn’t a poem, not even close:
we were having lunch out in the garden,
and between commenting on the sunlight
reflecting back from the leaves of the ivy 
and how well, newly purchased and potted, 
the cosmos had taken, I leafed through Peter’s book,
searching for something I might read aloud, perhaps,
though not loud enough to startle the neighbours, 
and the more I read the more it seemed
like one long poem about growing up
in the middle of nowhere, or Derbyshire,
as its sometimes called; half-forgotten rooms 
that people walked into and failed to walk out of,
waiting, like memories, to be discovered,
commemorated. Not a poem this, not even close.


John Harvey: On Reading Peter Sansom’s “Lanyard” II

Sunlight slanting through the trees
I sit leafing through Peter’s book again,
in awe at the ease with which
past and present elide,
time coalesces and expands,
memories filter, like chalk dust,
between the fingers of one hand.

Cold-eyed, a cormorant breaks the surface
of the water, neck wound steeply back 
to swallow its catch.

Across the North Sea our daughter
is making art from blocks of ice;
the slow beauty of decline and decay:
for an instant I see my reflection in her eyes.

Abruptly the wind changes direction,
a cloud shunts its way across the sun;
I count on the fingers of one hand
the number of times I might see her again.

Peter says it better than ever I could:
Sand in our shoes and our shoes in our hands
we walk fully clothed into the sea

I slide his book back into my pocket,
turn and begin my unsteady walk 
towards home; somewhere, melting ice 
drips down into a waiting cup; 
water evaporates leaving salt,
the smell, faint, of fresh sea water, 
the gradual turning of the tide.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Peter Devonald: All The Cricketers Are Dead

All the cricketers are dead
one line can say so much
in a charity shop the yearning broken years
separations / anxieties 
the shameful loss / of pressing certainty 
horizons and destinies 
the hour glass runs so fast
sand cascades unerring and never lasts.
The old lady recalls glorious halcyon days that stretched 

forever / cricketers flushed with summer youth
flashing blades of willow on leather / greenest grass and
boundaries crossed / keeping score but not counting the cost
heads turned as autumn chill shudders.
Now one by one the obituaries come 
she kept herself together for the longest time
till with this perfect cricket Birthday card she is undone 
a single tear drops softly, respectfully, overcome.
Shoppers stare and dodder aghast
the casual shattering of years / of shrugs, solitude and silence.

Vignettes of sadness and forgetting / loss and shame
life will never be the same / again.
Memories flood and drown / winter blows 
so much colder for us all / bending tide and time
a lonely life is only half lived meantime.
With this epiphany / the old lady smiles
nonchalantly purchases the perfect Birthday card
with a casual flamboyant swish of her scarf
out the door without goodbyes / leaving broken hearts 
significant sighs / as if she held the universe in her eyes.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Myra Schneider: Pool 
after David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring in Normandy 2020
 
The green thrum doesn’t disturb the silence
as I push my way through damp grasses
between newly-leaved bushes to the pool
 
where the sun embraces my back as I stand
sniffing air untouched by traffic, longing to touch
the green pads bearing white petals poised like dancers
 
which are floating on the water’s surface. Green is everywhere
and it glorifies the bushes by doubling them in water.
Crouching, to watch water boatman gliding over the surface,
 
I sense the busyness of beetles and worms wriggling
in the silty darkness below, think myself into it,
among larvae and hairy roots. Suddenly
 
I am stripping off smart phones and bombs, stripping off
presidents and fossil fuels, stripping off cars and envy,
love and poverty, stripping off logic, speech,
 
skin and bone, thinking how my origins, all origins
go back four billion years to the dark depths
of the sea where single-celled microbes,
 
next-to-nothings, first inhabited this planet.
I wonder why it is that thoughts and ideas
always begin in a dark which can’t be measured
 
and I feel the inexplicable power of creativity
pulsing through this pool even though it’s only
a sketch reproduced on a page in a book.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Kelly Davis: I sat opposite Autumn on the Tube

I sat opposite Autumn on the Tube,
I think it was the Circle Line. 
She wouldn’t meet my eye,
just sat there tight-lipped,
reading her book.

I noticed a slight fume of poppies
from a sad-looking addict
lying on a dirty sleeping bag
as I followed Autumn through a tunnel 
to the Northern Line.

Her hair was mostly under a woolly hat
but as we stood on the platform 
a few wisps were soft lifted 
by the winnowing wind
when the next train whooshed in.

I admit she had a patient look
as we rattled all the way 
to Morden. Leaving the station
in the soft-dying day, I batted away 
a cloud of whining gnats.

But there were no lambs,
hedge-crickets, robins
or swallows to be seen. 
And then Autumn disappeared
down a side street.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Edmund Prestwich: Escape
(South Africa, middle sixties)

On the world’s far edge, even the seasons were wrong.
December’s brutal heat brought exhausted stillness.
Iron-roofed bungalows crouched over gardens.
While Zulus dug and lifted, moving like languid shadows,
watchdogs panted under trees.
Christmas beetles shrieked from our willow,
but prone on my bed, facing a book,
I entered the Golden Wood where cool light fell,
discovered Lascaux Cave, heard rock walls ringing
with horses’ silent thunder, murmured
names of Greek gods like incantations, 
world on world unscrolling as I read

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Kevin McManus: Everything was this Moment

The white sash window was open slightly,
it was early May.

The net curtain waltzed back and forth
like the swash and backwash of a wave,
as the early, fresh and clean Summer air
flowed in. 

It was quiet, almost silent apart from
birdsong from the tree in the garden and
the flutter of the green leaves.

The afternoon light that shone through
the curtain landed on a spot on the brown
flower-patterned carpet.

Everything was in harmony,
everything was this moment.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Oliver Dixon: Second Hand

Time had run out; or 
    at least the tiny cell 
        inside my battered Omega.

The sweep hand hovered,
       caught between two seconds,
           fibrillating like a heart
                as it faintly enters
                       arrhythmia

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Annabelle Markwick-Staff: The Lock-In
After a Stanley Schtinter film consisting entirely of pub footage 

from the British soap opera East Enders

Beneath feverish streets, Akashic soap
cools and cleans my mind. This brutal 

crypt is packed with ghosts – you can smell
their pints, frothy with ectoplasm. 

The TV reliquary preserves undead dogs 
and St. Dot in cathode-ray jewels, 

for punters to venerate from their barstools. 
Phosphorescent pub waveforms are looped,

moments that never really were, are 
locked into single channel eternity. 

Angie takes Den’s car keys. They are
the keys to the archive, the container 

and meaning-maker of the pencil-kissed universe. 
The doof doofs sound. What will happen now? 

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Barry Smith: Between Dream and Sweetheart

now the war is no longer
top billing on 
the evening news
we may in time forget

the bombed theatre
at Mariupol 
with hundreds ground 
to dust in the cellar

the Tochka-U rocket
blasting the apartment block
the pregnant woman
with her legs blown off

the bodies piled with tyres
the mass graves
between the villages
of Dream and Sweetheart

but we will not forget
the sand-bagged 
statue of the poet
and the image of 

the child in a grey anorak
and yellow bobble hat
staring wide-eyed
with his palm pressed

against the cold glass
of the carriage window
as the train shudders
into motion

Mria and Myla are two Ukrainian villages whose names translate as Dream and Sweetheart.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Tom Phillips: Cross country to the coast

The train is moving off,
but lacks determination.
A city gull overtakes us,	
wings beating in slow motion.
Your words trail behind us,
recalling other departures.
From time to time, a station,
a market, a stand of trees
catches us unawares –
we’ve ridden this line before:
it was summer and no rain
has left land ochre, its earth
cataracts on embankments.
Today is a ripening quince,
it smells of harvest coming.
You watch relentless plain,
impossibly distant mountains.	
We are picking up speed,
though the sea will have silvered
by the time we reach it
and you’ll still want to swim,
submerge in another element
among silent, darting creatures.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Kurt Luchs: The Two Lights

Something about the way the human lights come on
at this point in the evening, how the first
of their glow shines against the last
of the natural light, our neon brightness growing
as the sun diminishes and the sky’s fierce colors
fade from red and orange into pale blue and the clouds
become bits of purple-gray seaweed swept back
under the wave of dark which is the horizon
and the night washes over us and the stars
remain, sparkling pebbles on a beach
that stretches farther than we can see.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

David S Lorello: Prague, March 2014

In Prague they do not know
what to do with their streets,
so they clean them.

It was there that the devil delivered me
after we were done drinking, there in Prague.
Do you remember how we were walking 
and imagining ourselves playing game theory 
against the new Russian emperor?

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Fred Johnston: The Russian Version

This hotel lobby’s had a make-over
Since I was here with Alyona talking of Tolstoi over coffee and biscuits
She looked as tidy and colourful as a child’s doll
A gift for a child plucked from the yellow light of a Duty-Free window
We never met again

She took something I’d written and
With impressive, cautious efficiency, read it back to me in Russian
And made it sound much grander, much better
Than it was. I remember the word for a garden, ca¤, sounds like sad   
That’s what she told me

She read like a girl tending flowers
What I’d written wasn’t mine anymore, it was hers, I let it go
When she folded the page it turned into a white bird
Tucking away its wings in the small white nest of her hands
And it began to rain

Against the gangly tall windows
Making a sound between a hiss and a whisper, a breathing sound
And the lobby lights shaped like elegant candles
Fluttered on. Alyona was not made for that room, or cold rain
On tall windows.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Donald Wetherick: Last Word

… and when I die
Let my last word be my epitaph.
Whether it be fair or foul or wise,
Or foolish words half gurgled out, half garbled;
Let them stand.
And let the reader understand that I,
Unfinished, incomplete, a word-puzzle,
Live engraved beneath, behind my words.

I lift my head to speak, to drink a breath,
To eat life, cheat at death, to bring to birth
Something of the fruit of one life’s gleaning,
Or perhaps a seed of future meaning:
‘This birth, this breath, this life, this death…’
No words come.  Only silence, and a word;
‘And…

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Pamela Job: Clodia hears of the death of Catullus 

Oh, my youth, you’re gone! Your enigmatic odes
roamed every part of me, your punning modes
broke all the rules – and so did we. Obsession’s
not my bag, I like to keep things light. Passion’s
fleet of foot, so’s lust. Young studs, knocking my door 
day and night – or so you thought! Lesbia, whore.
You wrote me off as such but your last bequest
sent your sparrow-words to flutter in my breast. 
Now my heart’s flayed, my body aches, each day’s sky
fades into its night like a bruise since you died. 

The Roman poet Catullus (c. 87 B.C.E. – 57 A.D.) addressed many poems in hendecasyllabic

 metre to his older married lover, Clodia Metelli, calling her Lesbia. 

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Vika Gusak: Me and i

I think I will call you i.
Pure imaginary.
You are not a number.
You don't exist in the real world
I needed you to solve a very particular problem 
Now you are everywhere.
But still definitely imaginary
I can't imagine how I managed without you

In mathematics i denotes the “imaginary” square root of -1, a quantity which does not

 exist in real arithmetic but which has proved very useful in physical applications

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Jane Simpson: Meditations in a galley kitchen

Kneeling is the creak of rafters in a country church.
It is a woman on the floor wrestling with a can and can opener.

A chest is a treasury of beef casseroles and chicken curries.
It is sixty individual portions, almost touching.

Weight is a display of numbers, fading.
It is butter and icing sugar meeting with coffee.

The waft of chamomile over a meadow,
sleep is an envelope opened after dinner.


Jane Simpson: Explanation of radiotherapy

no knife
no blood
just breaking
the back
of anonymous
genes

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Dick Jones: Phlebotomy

Even as I drive home
my blood is talking to the man.
My salts and spices are telling
my story to a stranger.
Confession in absentia.

Unremarkable, that antiseptic
chapel with its scattered chairs.
Then the curly-headed priest
in white, drawing the tincture,
a communion for two, into
its tiny phial. My blood, my
talkative blood, spinning
my secrets into pixels.

He reads through light
the narrative of bilorubin,
basophils and monocytes,
of ace inhibitors and antigens.
He knows the names of all
the heroes and the villains
and he calls them in, the
good shepherd, the sweet
young physiologist. His way
is calm; his song is soft
and when it’s run from clef
to staff, he turns away.

Later, I read it all in words,
an altogether sterner judgment:
sentence pronounced - its
syllables, its commas,
its full stops.


Dick Jones: The Anarchist Café

Anarchists should open cafes.
Spill the ill-assorted chairs
and tables onto the pavement.
Go heavy with the red paprika,
shower down the black pepper.
Have trans and Roma waiters
to glide between the tables,
taking orders couched in verse.
Decorate the walls with graffito
pics of Emma Goldman, Patti Smith,
Pete Kropotkin, Allen Ginsberg.
Sit the refugee next to the barrister.
Welcome dogs of all persuasions.
Usher in the teenage truant.
Request that those in uniform slip
into all-encompassing rainbow robes.
Feed the snap-trap eager-beaver
TV MPs vegan burgers ‘til they go
all Leo Tolstoy, shouting,
We are new in heart and soul,
come to change the way things are!

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Abdul Karim Al-Ahmad: Away from the microscope
Translated by Catherine Cobham

Away from the scourge of censorship
Explain to us how an iron will dissolves in the face of hammer blows
And how the sun protects itself from heart attacks
And how gardenias bloom on walls that breathe crushed concrete
Away from the guardians of virtue
Steer clear of the words that sever umbilical cords
Rouse them from their slumber with mosquito spray or something harsher
Knead them with the music that frees roads from their darkness
Let them expel all the sighs suppressed within them
Load them with the freedom that shakes the firmness of iron fists
And train them
To box with sandbags
To crush Siberian ice
To strain their vocal chords
To pull tight the belt round the waist of the wind
Steer clear of the words that smell the corpse of nothingness
Words that don’t rely on support from any god
And let them build and destroy the world you will not see
The consequences will not be as great as you imagine
There is no longer a marked difference between right and wrong

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Ben Banyard: Columbo

The twist is that it’s not whodunnit but how, 
the false trails they laid, watches broken at the wrong time of death,
even an electric blanket to warm the corpse in one episode.

There’s always a little thread for him to tug at, a mistake they’ve made.
I swear, sometimes, he knows the moment he first meets them,

something in the way they survey and dismiss him:
grubby old mack, scruffy shoes, chewing on a cigar, that car.
They underestimate him and perhaps it becomes about class too.

He charms them, says how he and his wife are fans, maybe,
cosies up and puts them at their ease.

And the smile on their face as he shuffles out the door
freezes, rictus, when he reappears, finger in the air,
play-acts that he’s forgotten about just one more thing.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Leona Gom: Deductions
Information from the present moment is held in 
	the working memory for only 15 to 20 seconds.
				—Lisa Genova  “Remember”

That flick of chickadee at the window, the coffee 
cup you set on the bookshelf, the murmur 
of music from the radio, the handful of peanuts 
and two of them fall between the cushions 
and you fumble for them but not convincingly.

None of these things will you remember, 
none will shuffle to the hippocampus 
and the friendly neurons who might let them 
stay.  They will disappear instantly and 
forever from your brain and consciousness, 
all those moments you didn’t flag as 
important.  You can't change your mind. 
You can’t retroactively pay attention.

You realize how much of your memory 
is deductive, how if this evening you find 
your missing coffee cup on the bookshelf, 
how if in a few weeks you find two peanuts 
between the cushions, you will assume, 
with only mild surprise, you must 
have left them there.

Most of your life is like that.  You must 
have been there when it happened, 
but you can’t be sure.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Megan Jennings: Attention Deficit

Because there are far worse things than being a dilettante 
and sometimes cake doesn’t cut it. Because I’ve got a flypaper 
brain for catastrophe. Because not all doors open equally 
and a fire in the belly doesn’t always meet opportunity. Because 
your dull stares contain too many caveats and I don't trust 
your subterranean policies. Because it all falls apart in your thirties.
Because it’s shocking how dark some homes can be even if 
south facing. Because weeds thrive on ignorance and neglect but can 
also be beautiful. Because some dreams are only one room wide 
but even if you choose to hide from the world it will still come find you. 
Because putting a leaping dolphin sculpture in your garden is awful, no argument.
Leaving it stranded and landlocked, destined to exist only in memory.
Because driving a car isn’t trivial and requires your full attention. 
Because you’ve had far too long to write the world and have mostly 
done it with over half of it missing. Because the spittle on my lip 
doesn't make my views invalid. Because anthropomorphism is a fallacy 
and I’m insect-hearted, taking the same delight in the beauty and 
scent of a bloom as they do. Because I know that good front you put up
is to reassure-deflect the unpredictable, fickle pack. 
Because loving isn’t trivial and requires your full attention.
Because it all falls apart in your forties. Because cockatoos 
might be left-handed, along with kangaroos. Because you should 
never plant rose bushes under clothes lines and there’s never 
enough metal to melt down to satisfy man’s madness for munitions. 
Because SUVs are HRT for those chest-beating and screaming ‘notice me’. 
Because if poverty makes people mean then so too does prosperity. Because 
I’m micro-dosing alcohol all day long via cherry liqueur chocolates like a 
reclusive contessa. Because no one notices the person who replenishes 
the toilet paper until they stop doing it. Because it takes all sorts of idiots. 
Because we’re all doing covid air kisses and it all falls apart in your fifties. 
No your sixties, your seventies. Because the cloud of cheap perfume 
surrounding that group of girls wasn’t an invitation. Because 
attention is a kind of goldmine when you’re given it.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Jill Harris: Just because

Just because there were shepherds
keeping watch in the fields –
until angels summoned them
to traipse across country in search of a barn –
doesn’t mean they came calmly, avidly
willing to kneel. Perhaps one or two at least
arrived ragged, sore-headed,
ready to kill or steal.

And just because Christmas cards picture 
them herded together, a group, gazing in awe
at a cradle, doesn’t mean there weren’t some 
who wished they were anywhere other than there
with the newly hatched family sitting in straw
in a bleak, unadorable stable.

Because after a long night’s vigil in the dark
who wouldn’t want to hurry home and sleep,
and wake up to olives and fresh milk
instead of lurching into a vast trek  
through stony contours of stark hills, 
against the body’s tide.

And just because there were magi – so-called 
wise men – who came bearing gifts, like kings – 
doesn’t mean they didn’t bring as well
the usual baggage of human life:
insecurity, rivalry, wanting to be admired. 
Because however it is dressed up,  
where two or three gather together 
isn’t there always strife?

Perhaps, like us at family Christmases
they crafted smiles just strong enough 
to see them through a few long hours, until 
the glaze cracked open and they fell
into their separateness, 
beyond any reach at all.

They would go home unchanged – why wouldn’t they –
being human to the core?
Why would one journey through a haze of stars 
do anything to mend the craziness? 

Still, for that brief interlude it worked.
They were a group. Time stopped.
Lulled by the sound of cattle grazing, 
they could forget themselves.
A stable hung in space. Light shone 
on everyone and through them 
to each other. Straight from the source.   	  

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

John Short: Living Pieces

As family life continues
she’s quiet as death,
doesn’t talk much these days.
		
Confused in a corner
brotherless
her child’s mind trying
to make sense of it,
		
left with only photos 
to remember
how they used to be:
		
him in his Spiderman shirt
precarious on rubble,
her unscarred face
smiling at the camera
		
while up above, strangers
played chess with living pieces.
		

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Roy Duffield: A Short History of Religion

We thanked the sea
for the fish

We thanked the fish
for its life

We thanked the river
for being so sweet

We thanked the forest
for its fruit

We thanked the land
for its soil for the forest’s roots

We thanked the sky
for its tears

We thanked the rock
for its stability

We thanked the dead
for their company

We thanked the fire
for staying the night

We thanked the night
for some very much needed peace and quiet

We thanked the stars
for their guidance

We thanked the sun
for everything it’d done

We lost our way
only when we expected, “you’re welcome”

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Nolo Segundo: On Eating An Orange And Seeing God

I miss the big navels when they are not in season, 
but almost any orange will do when I really want to see God.

But it must be done right, this seeing, this apprehension of the 
Lord of the Universe, Lord of All the Worlds, both seen and 
unseen….

First I feel how firm the orange is, rolling it in my hands,
the hands of an artist, the hands of a poet, and now the stiff
and cracked hands of an old man--
then I slice it in half and look at its flesh, its brightness,
its moistness, its color--
if the insides beckon, urging my mouth to bite,
I first cut each half into half and then slowly, carefully--
as all rituals demand-- I put one of the cut pieces between
my longing lips and gradually, with a sort of grace, bite
into the flesh of the sacrificial fruit.

I feel the juice flow down my throat and recall the taste of 
every orange I ever had, even in my childhood—or so it 
seems, with this little miracle of eating an orange.

As I finish absorbing, still slowly and gracefully, its flesh,
the last bit of what had been one of the myriad wonders 
of the world, I look at the ragged pieces of orange peel 
and I see poetry-- or God-- it’s really the same thing,
isn’t it?

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Frederick Pollack: The Prophet Stones

Years of photos
dustier than their subject; faxes and grants
stopped by obscure melodramas
of believers and governments. Finally I’m financed 
and invited. Dr. A, with a bodyguard
warty with holsters, meets my flight. 
A for anomaly: only woman 
at the only university,
entubed in traditional garb. No-nonsense;
tells me what I know:
the Stones were carved by heretics,
gnostics or worse.  Why ‘heretics,’
I ask, if they predated your Faith? 
Am ignored. The hotel near the site 
seems to think all foreigners sleep in brothels. 
Feet (knees?) of believers on the street all night. 
Dawn, dust. Hallucinatory mountains.
The first Stones were unearthed by bombing
two wars back, or two phases of the war.
They are what I’ve seen; more fragile.
The beauty of those letters, unlike all others.
She leads me to Row 4, Stele 6,
the subject of her inconclusive book,
my tentative articles. The Stone seems
to speak in its own right, she says. 
There’s a ‘stone man,’ or a man who loves stone.
The grammar makes clear he’s alone
but wise, he spoke or speaks truth;
it’s unclear if he comes from heaven.
I point out a tail on the pseudo-alpha
or -aleph; it resembles a shifter of tense
in Sarmatian inscriptions. But those – she begins.
The bodyguard approaches at a run. 
The terrorists have launched 
a major attack; all Westerners must leave.
Explosions north of the road
as he drives, madly. At the airport, 
from what I can interpret 
of her expression, Dr. A
looks lost. On the plane,
doubly jetlagged, I manage 
to sleep, wake up seeing it:
Only the materialist understands.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Sally Michaelson : Hiatus

Even in the forest
our walk was at risk
of being curtailed
by your need for a short-cut
an as the crow flies
to get you to the car park
so as not to be late
for what had just come up	
by text message…
knowing all the paths
I could guide you out 
in record time 
by ignoring the sign
Horseback Riders Only
a ban not applicable to you
riding roughshod over lives 

On one occasion
when our walk was interruptus
you texted after nightfall
saying you enjoyed our walk
and could we continue it now ?

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Lynn White: Plasticine Modelling

“Hold it in your hands
for a few minutes”,
he told her
with the wisdom of age.

He knew that would
make it easier to manipulate,
make it softer,
more plastic,
malleable,
flexible.

And that would make it easier 
to make the models
true to life
real likenesses
of the one
who had abused her
for there should be no mistake.

Lots of models.
Ready for pins
to be inserted
in accordance
with instruction.

Enough

to ensure 

there would be no recovery.

The mothers smiled
as they watched 
their children
playing
so happily.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Kathleen McPhilemy : Keeping the Noise Down

She has taken a vow of silence
so she can be 	
the handmaid of the Lord
	       	the footstool of the Lord
	       	the doormat of the Lord

so men uninterrupted 
in long black dresses
in long white dresses
richly caparisoned

-- Isn’t that word for horses?
Yes, it’s for horses –

		in gold threads and purple
		embroidered by women

can move with grace around these spaces
these lofty spaces
these heaven-scratching spaces

incanting, intoning
delivering homilies
thoughtful reflections on how to live
in the world they know
a man’s world;

		the flowers on the altar
		are beautiful and noiseless
		placed there earlier
		noiselessly
		by noiseless women.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Cáit O'Neill McCullagh : This Fire Across Our Hearts

Because you thought it unseemly for girls to careen about the streets, we watched brothers
handlebar flaneurs, as they three-wheeled futures we could never imagine.

Because it was unheard of to stamp out patriarchy, to put the portraits of leaders to our boots
we bound our feet curl-toed, made scarlet the curl of our lips, secreted speech in silks.

Because it was not the done thing to shear nor show even the promise of our tresses
we covered them (out of sight, not minds) & shaved sigils of blood & milk from our bodies 

Because it was intolerable that we might feel freedom at our ears, hear the world uncloaked
we wove fleeces between us & the wind. These wefts shuttled our shrouds too. 

Because it was not pleasing for us to know our own minds, nor to have knowledge of yours
you policed our morality, while setting us on the precarity of your priapic pedestals.

                                                Because of these things …

Because it is not de rigueur to name those who sever us from dignity in Hebron, 
in Wembley we slash our locks & arms raised, hold-up our hair to you like swords.

Because never in all your days did you imagine we were more than chattels, trafficked trade
we sunder to your shackles & smoor you with the smoke of our sovereignty.

Because it is acceptable to you that her head was burst, fig-soft, for two strands unkept
we keen the name of Mahsa Amini & our thunder sounds the streets of Saqqez.

Because she chose freedom her name will not die, it will be a symbol, because of you
we beat the air with our scarves & transform them into ensigns of liberty.

We are the storm. We claim them, these sisters: Sarah, Breonna, Munyai, Mahsa ...
The memory of them – all our sisters - it is a fire across our hearts.

Back to poet list… Forward to next poet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Fizza Abbas: If depression were a thing, it would be my cellphone

I wake up every day to the sound of a notification:
X has posted pictures of her recent trip to New York.
“A baby is on the way”, writes Z,
and here I'm sitting with a big fat book lying on my lap, music in the background
thinking about what I should make next. Should it be tea? noodles? Or just grab a bag of chips?
because let’s be honest, tea and noodles are the only two things I can make.
A notification appears: “I’m making chicken biryani for hubby. Oh baby, muah.”
My inadequacy makes me wonder. Do I not care enough for my Habibi?
no worries, I can learn it. I open a YouTube video and a message shows up on my screen,
“Hey, I was thinking, it’s been ages since we last met. Are you free tonight?”
(Of course, babe. I was free, just waiting for you to ping me. And ya, let’s hang out.)
I went to the party, met a few more mutual friends, had coffee and conversations like
“Why have you and Wiki decided to not have a baby? You’ve no idea what you’re missing out on.”
Because apparently, having a baby or not having one is going to affect the global economy.
Life wasn’t that bad when I was unmarried. Now I’m answerable to everyone for everything.
My phone doesn’t stop buzzing. calls, messages, tags.
People find it their duty to remind me of my duties towards my husband.
Some even go over the board and send me blogs titled
” 7 ways to be a woman he wants” 10 tricks to get your man in the mood”.
Every time this happens, I try to ignore all the crap and focus on reading poems
but I get a tweet, “my dream pub has accepted my poem, I’m over the moon.”.
I reminisce about the rejection email(s) I received hours ago
and all my efforts to snap myself out of a bad mood go in vain.
Why god? Why did my poem fail to make the cut? why
did I select the wrong font? Ariæl is hurt now. What should I do?
Being an EAL writer with zero self-confidence, I shrug it off, calling myself an “imposter”. 
The syndrome hits hard like a truck and I struggle to fight off my anxiety.
Sometimes, I wish my phone would just die, or maybe it’s me I wish were dead, I can’t be sure,
if nothing else, I hope it catches a virus, I caught the ‘rona, why does my phone get a free pass

 

Back to poet list

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***

Fizza Abbas is a writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her work has appeared in more than 90 journals, both online and in print. Her work has also been nominated for Best of The Net and shortlisted for Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021. She has also authored two books, Ool Jalool (Fahmidan Publishing) and Bakho (Ethel Press). Aside from writing, she runs a YouTube channel where she interviews poets and zine editors. She tweets @fizzawrites.

Abdul Karim Al-Ahmad is an author from Syria. He currently resides in Germany. He writes poetry, stories and novels and a number of them have been published in Arab and international literary magazines & websites. He was recently awarded the Ossi di Seppia Prize for   International Poetry

Ben Banyard lives in Portishead, just outside Bristol, UK. His third collection, Hi-Viz, was published by Yaffle Press in 2021 and is available via his website: https://benbanyard.wordpress.com. Ben also edits Black Nore Review: https://blacknorereview.wordpress.com

 Luigi Coppola is a teacher, poet, first generation immigrant and avid rum and coke drinker.  His poems have appeasred in The Worple Press anthology The Tree Line and the magazines Acumen, Ink, Sweat & Tears,Iota, Magma, Rattle and Rialto (see more at www.LuigiCoppolaPoetry.blogspot.co.uk

Kelly Davis lives in Cumbria and works as a freelance editor. Her poetry has appeared in Mslexia, Magma, The Journal and Shooter. She has twice been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and she appears in Best New British and Irish Poets 2019–2021 (Black Spring Press). She has a joint pamphlet, written with Kerry Darbishire, called Glory Days (Grey Hen Press). www.kellydavis.co.uk

Tony Dawson lives in Seville. He has published poems and flash fiction in English both in print and online in the UK, USA, and Australia. He has also published poems and flash fiction in Spanish in Spain and the USA.

Peter Devonald is a Manchester based poet/ screenwriter, winner Waltham Forest Poetry Competition 2022,Winner of FofHCS Poetry Award 2022 and winner Heart Of Heatons Poetry Award 2011.Poet in residence at Haus-a-rest. 80+ poems published including Artists Responding To…, Forget-Me-Not Press and Greenhouse.Featured in Poetic Map of Reading, 5 group poetry gallery shows 50+ film awards (Gold Remi WorldFest), former senior judge/ mentor Peter Ustinov Awards (iemmys) and Children’s Bafta nominated. www.scriptfirst.com

Oliver Dixon writes “My first book of poems Human Form (Penned in the Margins) appeared in 2013 and my philosophy guide Who the Hell is Friedrich Nietzsche?( Bowden & Brazil) in 2019. During the last year I’ve had reviews published in PN Review, Poetry Review, The High Window and World Literature Today and poems published in Tears in the Fence and The Interpreter’s House. As well as being a writer, I’m also a college lecturer working with students with complex needs who lives in Hertfordshire.”

Roy Duffield is a nomadic writer and translator and helps edit Anti-Heroin Chic—a journal that puts those on the outside inside. He is a winner of the Robert Allen Micropoem Contest (2021), was honoured to be chosen to perform at the 2019 Beat Poetry Festival in Barcelona, and his words have recently been spotted entering such establishments as SurVision Magazine, Sein und Werden, streetcake, Untitled: Voices, Dream Catcher, Lune: The Journal of Literary Misrule and The London Reader‘s Raves & Resistance: Counterculture number

Julia Duke is a poet and writer of creative non-fiction, inspired by the landscape and her fellow humans, from diverse artworks and quirky ideas. She has poems included in Fifth Elephant and Digital Elephant (Newtown poets anthologies), the Suffolk Poetry Society magazine Twelve Rivers, Dreich, The Dawntreader and the Ekphrastic Review.  ‘Conversations’, her first poetry pamphlet, is published by Dempsey & Windle.

Jane Frank’s latest chapbook is Wide River (Calanthe Press, 2020). Her poems have won awards and been widely published both in Australia and elsewhere, appearing most recently in the ACU Poetry Prize Anthology 2022, StylusLit, The Galway Review, Grieve (Hunter Writers Centre 2022), Spelt, Burrow, Poetry Ireland Review, NOON and The Ekphrastic Review. Jane lives in Brisbane where she lectures in creative and professional writing at Griffith University. Calanthe Press will publish a full collection of her work in May 2023. Find more at https://www.facebook.com/JaneFrankPoet/

Leona Gom is a Canadian writer who has published fifteen books of fiction and poetry and has had work in over a hundred anthologies.  At present she lives mostly by deduction

Vika Gusak studied mathematics at Imperial College, London followed by a PhD in statistical mechanics. She created the “Emily Said It Better” iPhone poetry chatbot app.

Jill Harris lives in Bristol, loves the natural world and still manages to live happily without a  smartphone.

Crime writer and dramatist as well as poet, between 1977 and 1999 John Harvey was the publisher of Slow Dancer Press. His most recent poetry collection is Aslant (Shoestring Press, 2019)

Sarah James is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer, journalist and photographer. Her latest books are Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press), highly commended in the Forward Prize, and a chapbook Ten Lines or More Than Just Love Notes (Loughborough University). Website: http://www.sarah-james.co.uk.

Megan Jennings is a New Zealand writer living in Auckland. Her work has appeared in the NZ Poetry Year Book, takah?, Turbine and The Poetry NZ Anthology 2021.

Pam Job lives in Essex. She has co-edited five poetry anthologies. Her poems appear in Fanfare, poems by Contemporary Women Poets, (SLP, 2015), The Migrant waders, (Dunlin Press, 2016), Arrival at Elsewhere, (2020), The Welsh Poetry Competition Anthology, 2017 -2021 and On a Knife Edge, (Suffolk Poetry Society, 2021) among others. She has had poems published in magazines, most recently in London Grip online magazine but mostly she likes the pressure of competition deadlines. Her poem, The Parcel, was included in the oratorio The Affirming Flame by Tom Randle, premiered at Snape Maltings in 2019.

Fred Johnston was born in Belfast in 1951.His most recent publication is a collection of poems, Rogue States (Salmon Poetry, 2019.) He is working on a new collection and compiling a third collection of sort stories, towards which he received an Irish Arts Council Literature Bursary last year. Work has appeared in The Spectator, Stand, Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Ties and Temenos Academy Review. He lives in Galway.

Dick Jones’ work has been published in many magazines, print and online,His first collection, Ancient Lights, is published by Phoenicia Publishing(www.phoeniciapublishing.com/ancient-lights.html). His translation ofBlaise Cendrars’ influential epic poem ‘La Prose du Transsiberien…’ is published in an illustrated collaborative edition with artist Natalie D’Arbeloff by Old Stile Press
(www.oldstilepress.com/osp_book/trans-siberian-prosody-and-little-jeanne-from-france/).

 Wendy Klein has four collections and a pamphlet, Let Battle Commence’(2020 Dempsey & Windle Press),  the most recent her selected:  Out of the Blue, High Window Press, 2019.  She is currently trying, unsuccessfully, to place another pamphlet featuring an old friend’s medically assisted death.  All ideas welcome.

David Lorello is a lawyer, and lives in London.  He has written poetry privately for many years but has only recently sought publication for his work.  Over the last year, his poetry has focused on themes relating to the war in Ukraine (a matter of personal significance since he has deep family ties in Ukraine).

Kurt Luchs (kurtluchs.com) won a 2022 Pushcart Prize, a 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize, the 2021 Eyelands Book Award for Short Fiction, and the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He is a Senior Editor of Exacting Clam. His humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017), and his poetry collection, Falling in the Direction of Up (2021), are published by Sagging Meniscus Press. His latest poetry chapbook is The Sound of One Hand Slapping (2022) from SurVision Books (Dublin, Ireland). He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan

Annabelle Markwick-Staff is a Glastonbury/London poet. She recently graduated with an MA in Writing Poetry from the Poetry School/ Newcastle University. Her poems have been published in Popshot and Kindred Spirit. She is annabelleocto on Instagram.

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh, a public ethnologist and archaeologist, both has written for academic publications and for popular books concerning cultural life in Scotland. She began writing poetry at home in the Highlands in December 2020. Over forty of her poems have been published online, and in print, and some have been commissioned for exhibitions in Scotland and Ireland. A joint winner of Dreich’s Classic Chapbook Competition 2022, currently she is working on a new poetry pamphlet

 Kevin McManus is a poet from County Leitrim in Ireland. In 2021, he published a poetry collection entitled “The Hawthorn Tree” with Lapwing Publishers, Belfast. He has been published in a number of journals including, the Honest Ulsterman, The Madrigal, the Cormorant, the Galway Review, Dreich and An Aitiuil

Kathleen McPhilemy grew up in Belfast but now lives in Oxford. She has published four collections of poetry, the most recent being Back Country, Littoral Press, 2022.  She hosts a poetry podcast magazine, Poetry Worth Hearing

Sally Michaelson is a retired conference interpreter living in Brussels. Her poems have been published in Lighthouse, The High Window, Algebra of Owls, The Lake, London Grip, The Jewish Literary Journal, The Bangor Literary Journal, Seventh Quarry, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Lilith  and Squawk Back. Her debut collection The Boycott was published by The High Window in 2022

Caleb Perry Murdock is a 72-years-old American. He spent most of his life working as a word-processing operator for law firms. He has written poetry since his twenties but didn’t lose his chronic writer’s block until his late sixties. He is now writing up a storm to make up for lost time.

Tom Phillips is a writer, translator and lecturer who teaches creative writing and translation at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski.  His poetry has been published in journals, anthologies, pamphlets and three full collections: Unknown Translations (Scalino, 2016), Recreation Ground (Two Rivers Press, 2012) and Burning Omaha (Firewater, 2003). His translations of contemporary Bulgarian poetry & prose have also been published widely and his own work has been translated & published in more than a dozen languages. Recent and forthcoming publications include Peter Robinson: A Portrait of his Work (Shearsman, 2021) as editor and Geo Milev: Poems and Prose Poems (Worple Press, 2023) as translator.

Frederick Pollak isauthor of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and two collections, A Poverty Of Words (Prolific Press, 2015) and Landscape With Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Many other poems in print and online journals (London Grip ’20, ’22).

Edmund Prestwich spent most of his first fifteen years in South Africa under apartheid. Retired as a school teacher, he divides his time between seeing grandchildren, writing and reviewing poetry and reading more broadly.

Myra Schneider’s most recent collection is Siege and Symphony (SLP), 2021. Poet Marvin Thompson, Literature Officer for Wales, listed it in Poetry Review as one of his choices for 2021. Her other publications include books about personal writing. She  has had 11 full collections of poetry published and her work has been broadcast on Radio BBC4 and BBC3.

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L.J.Carber, 75, only became a widely published poet in his 8th decade in over 110 literary journals/anthologies in 7 countries and three trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020], Of Ether and Earth [2021] and the pending release of Soul Songs in late 2022. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net in 2022, he’s a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who has been married 42 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.

John Short lives near Liverpool and is active on the local poetry scene. His work has appeared most recently in The High Window, Pennine Platform, Dream Catcher and The Bosphorus Review. His last collection was Those Ghosts (Beaten Track 2021) and his next, In Search of a Subject, will be published by Cerasus Poetry in 2023.

Jane Simpson is a poet, historian and writer of liturgy based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her poems have most recently appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, London Grip, Otoliths, Poetry New Zealand Year Book and takah?. Her collections, A world without maps (2016) and Tuning Wordsworth’s Piano (2019), were published by Interactive Press. Her latest book is The Farewelling of a Home: a liturgy (2021).

Barry Smith is the director of the South Downs Poetry Festival and curates the poetry for Blakefest. Well-published in magazines such as Agenda, Acumen, Orbis, etc., his collection, Performance Rites, is available from Waterloo Press. Barry is also the editor of Poetry & All That Jazz magazine.

Donald Wetherick is a musician, composer and music therapist based in London, with family connections to Edinburgh and the East End. He is also an occasional hymn-writer and poet.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com