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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 […]
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‘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 […]
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‘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 […]
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‘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 […]
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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, […]
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‘Delphi’: a poem by Selena Wisnom
Delphi
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‘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 […]
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‘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 […]
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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 […]
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‘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 […]
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‘In and out of time’: on Declan Ryan’s ‘Five Leaves Left’
By Nicola Healey Crisis Actor by Declan Ryan was my favourite poetry collection of 2023 – I wrote on it at length for The London Magazine in July 2023, where […]
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Two poems by Stuart Henson
Marginal for Michael Brown And let us not dispraise the quiet manwho on a hundred acres sets back tenfor voles to tunnel in, finches to congregate,for beasts too slender […]
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‘Three Silences’: a poem by Jane Midwinter
Three Silences Bone dust and cold thick haunting silence restswhere pews and people creak and break the peaceand echo of my prayer, the echo of the priestdark wood pervades. Dark […]
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Three poems by Kimberly Johnson
For the fourth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome celebrated US-based poet, translator and literary critic Kimberly Johnson. Kimberly will be reading and in […]
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‘New Year’: a poem by Ross Wilson
New Year Doors are locked to neighbours nowat midnight on Hogmanay,the ‘first-fit’ a thing of the past:my grandparents’ house heaving with guests,the coal fire crackling, the craicmixing with smoke in […]
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‘Death Still Walks In’: a poem by D.R. James
Death Still Walks In ‘In the old days news of it traveled by foot.’— Billy Collins, ‘Death’ Here’s how to miss the deathof a friend whose houseyou glide by […]
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Causes in time: on ‘Thom Gunn – A Cool Queer Life’ by Michael Nott
Andre Bagoo Michael Nott’s Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life (Faber, 2024) begins with the seed of an idea. Over the course of its 720 pages, that seed builds into […]
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‘Every Particle Attracts Another’: a poem by Jenny Powell
Every Particle Attracts Another Dear (if I may) young Sperm Whale I recently received a letter beginning with‘Dear’. Four letters transforming a letter,travelling beyond a formal beginning to years of […]
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Three poems by Daniel Bennett
Red Check Shacket I’d heard the stories: the timeon Cromer beach, some oozinghallucinated morning, whereamongst the bladder wrackand shreds of net, he founda jetsam blister pack of pillsand snorted every […]
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‘Yakov in Space’: a poem by Isabelle Thompson
Yakov in Space Stalin sent his eldest son from his first marriage to fight on the front lines during World War Two. Yakov was captured by the Germans. Despite three […]