Wild Court

An international poetry journal based in the English Department of King’s College London

New work

  • Two poems from ‘Compass Light’ by Hilary Davies

    Two poems from ‘Compass Light’ by Hilary Davies

      Below are two poems from Compass Light, the new collection from Hilary Davies, recently published by Renard Press. River People Some of them – have you noticed? – hardly […]

  • ‘Audition’: a poem by Sheila  E. Murphy

    ‘Audition’: a poem by Sheila E. Murphy

    Audition I got my booster shot. The roostertrots out into the yard and throats a shout.Some huge truck beep-whines its lorry line of code.I’m about to compose an odefrom bedfast […]

  • Two poems from ‘Landline’ by William Wootten

    Two poems from ‘Landline’ by William Wootten

    Below are two poems from William Wootten’s new collection, Landline, forthcoming from Worple Press this October. Landline is Wootten’s first full-length collection in almost a decade, since You Have a […]

  • An extract from ‘A High Calling’ by John Greening

    An extract from ‘A High Calling’ by John Greening

    Below are two extracts from A High Calling (or Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?) by John Greening, recently published by Renard Press. Sharing what Greening has learnt during […]

  • Six poems from ‘Scavenger’ by Lisa Kelly

    Six poems from ‘Scavenger’ by Lisa Kelly

    Lisa writes: The Scavenger project relies on the acrostic form to record my regular walks around the Darlands Nature Reserve near where I live in north London. The garden centre […]

  • Losing ‘a sense sublime’: anosmia and poetry

    Losing ‘a sense sublime’: anosmia and poetry

    William Wordsworth at 28, by William Shuter Nicola Healey Smell is arguably the poet’s sense, and the most poetic sense: it is the most mysterious, least understood sense; scent triggers […]

  • ‘Not before time’: a poem by Paul Stephenson

    ‘Not before time’: a poem by Paul Stephenson

    Not before time will I climb the hillup to the Acropolis        then climb down again to sit about at a bar in Psyrilistening to jazz and sipping  […]

  • ‘For Takamura Kotaro’: a poem by Frederick Pollack

    ‘For Takamura Kotaro’: a poem by Frederick Pollack

    For Takamura Kotaro When the Bombs fall, and you listento the Emperor’s speech(almost opaquely formal,about “bearing the unbearable”),you think again of Chieko –now seven years dead –and certain phrases(perhaps from […]

  • A poem from ‘Peckinpah Suite’ by Paul Munden

    A poem from ‘Peckinpah Suite’ by Paul Munden

    In 1977 Sam Peckinpah, the writer and director, bought a plot of land in a remote part of Montana and had a cabin constructed. It was more a dream than […]

  • ‘Window’: a poem by Tim Cumming

    ‘Window’: a poem by Tim Cumming

    Window Her hand reaches through a slim shaft ofmorning sunlight falling across a goldsmith’swindow on the corner of a 1930s blockin the centre of town eighteen monthsinto the war, double […]

  • Two poems by Kenneth Pobo

    Two poems by Kenneth Pobo

    Meeting Olivia de Havilland On a perfect summer morning,Aunt Olive died. Age 96.She said her happiest daywas meeting Olivia de Havillandin 1964, “a peach.” Not her wedding to Uncle Sal,the […]

  • Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2025 winner: Theo Grange

    Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2025 winner: Theo Grange

    Theo Grange Study: BA English with Film, Faculty of Arts & Humanities flowers and tealights white dust sheet and a movingvan suddenly takes me from wherei called home. front step […]

  • Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2025 runner up: Rongshan Sha

    Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2025 runner up: Rongshan Sha

    Rongshan Sha BA Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy Waterloo Communion My suitcase still breathes of Hangzhou tea leaves,whispers of home steeped in Confucian ghosts,now resting beneath […]

  • Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2025 runner up: Zaynab Richardson

    Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2025 runner up: Zaynab Richardson

    Zaynab Richardson BSc Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine tokari banane wala We’re held, guarded, by the bruised arms of the founding pillars –of the bloodline.Surrounded by […]

  • Two poems by Christine Knight

    Two poems by Christine Knight

    Piano tuner Your hands were the lastto stroke the dustfrom my yellowing keys,to lift my inlaid panels withlong-fingered practised ease.In dreams I feel your palms slide downmy scarred and creaking […]

  • ‘One of the best Scottish poets of his generation’? – On Gerald Mangan

    ‘One of the best Scottish poets of his generation’? – On Gerald Mangan

    Matthew Stewart How many individuals really do manage to produce outstanding work in more than one medium of the arts? Very, very few is the inevitable answer – but Gerald […]

  • Two poems by Oliver Comins

    Two poems by Oliver Comins

      Events and sudden absences Being inhabitants of older vintage,we pass on by, for the most part,and rarely meet. Any conversationis likely to be short, could be the firstfor years […]

  • Two poems by William Thompson

    Two poems by William Thompson

    Saying Our Goodbyes The ward sister points us to your single room.It seems that you’re asleep as we come in but when Dad leans across and says your nameyour eyes […]

  • ‘Arrival Before the Rose Dream Ends’: a poem by Yucheng Tao

    ‘Arrival Before the Rose Dream Ends’: a poem by Yucheng Tao

    Arrival Before the Rose Dream Ends He says he’ll arrive in Portland tomorrow.It’s his turn to pay—In the silence before the restaurant opens,he arrives early. A self-serve hot pot,steam rising […]

  • Two poems by Mat Riches

    Two poems by Mat Riches

    TFI Friday…Oh, it’s Tuesday FYI, it’s day three of a one day pow wow,via an all-hands to the pump conference call,with space and sufficient time built in as standardfor conflabs […]

  • Four poems by Sascha Akhtar

    Four poems by Sascha Akhtar

    For the fifth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome acclaimed poet Sascha A. Akhtar. Sascha is the author of seven metaphysical poetry collections, a […]

  • ‘Flute Lesson’: a poem by Nicola Healey

    ‘Flute Lesson’: a poem by Nicola Healey

    Flute Lesson Played with real feeling,my examiner wrote. I envied cellists and pianists –they didn’t require one breath to flowfrom their lungs, up tremulous throat, to mouth,through neatly-aligned embouchure to […]

  • ‘Unfulfilled Playlist’:  a poem by Matt Gilbert

    ‘Unfulfilled Playlist’: a poem by Matt Gilbert

    Unfulfilled Playlist Inside the algorithm,no ratty-looking bloke hogs the ‘just-in’ section.Index finger flicking past clear plastic-coatedLPs, one album at a time. Animated mouthexpressing experienced appraisal of eachand every record he […]

  • ‘The Mountain’: a poem by Tess Jolly

    ‘The Mountain’: a poem by Tess Jolly

    The Mountain The mountain is a hostage-taker.By the time you reach the summit it may already be too late.When the path forks follow the stones and the moss,but listen to […]

  • From the shires: on Greening, Richardson, Branfoot, Self, & Nevett

    From the shires: on Greening, Richardson, Branfoot, Self, & Nevett

    Kevin Gardner Contemplating the literary significance of Huntingdonshire, that county that no longer exists outside memory and imagination, John Greening was reminded of all the poets who left their mark, […]

  • ‘Lent’: a poem by Helen Evans

    ‘Lent’: a poem by Helen Evans

    Lent It can be as simple as this: the sound of someone hooveringmakes you turn around from your desk to look, and thereon your bedroom wall is an impossible sunlit […]

  • ‘Undertow’: a poem by Nicholas Hogg

    ‘Undertow’: a poem by Nicholas Hogg

    Undertow Eyes wide in the dark, I listen. A thud upon the hull,drumming, like a cold caller stoic at a bolted door.I lift the hatch and go outside. Bright starsdulled […]

  • From the archive: two poems by Tamiko Dooley

    From the archive: two poems by Tamiko Dooley

    These poems were originally published on Wild Court in March 2022. Susumu The sun beat down on Tokyo intensely:Forty-five in the shade. The matsu treeStretched out across Susumu’s back garden,Providing […]

  • ‘Visiting Mary’: a poem by Helen Calcutt

    ‘Visiting Mary’: a poem by Helen Calcutt

      Visiting Mary I visit the place I imagine her in.I practice walking the tall grassto the stony house,the bit of rock they’ve left, a candleto mark she was there,that […]