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On Claudian’s ‘The Old Man of Verona’
Photo by Henrique Ferreira André Naffis-Sahely Situated halfway between Venice and Milan, recently the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, the city of Verona has had its fair […]
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‘Music of the Republic’: a poem by Ruth Padel
Music of the Republic You were with him in his final hours… Carolyn Forché, ‘Last Bridge’ Plato put a spell on you from the beginning. […]
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‘Ablutions’: a poem by Nadia Saward
Ablutions I sat with her body until morning. The blueblack cold mimicked her blueblack skin. I chafed her feet with lemon-scented lotion. The corridors were quiet, […]
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‘Dear Sydney Graham’: a poem by Daniel Hinds
Dear Sydney Graham ‘Under your blue hat.’ – W. S. Graham, ‘Dear Bryan Wynter’ I My feet wear odd socks today, one of yours, One […]
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‘A March Nest’: a poem by Gregory Leadbetter
A March Nest A tilt of the light and I wake with a twig in my mouth, building between the shoots and reeds I’d laid in […]
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‘Epithalamion: A Wicklow Triptych’ by Tarn MacArthur
I. Avondale House I wanted to bring you to a place of meaning, meaning, I wanted to bring you somewhere that meant something to me so […]
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Three poems by Clare Crossman
Photo by Gary Butterfield The below poems are taken from Clare’s new collection The Mulberry Tree, forthcoming from Shoestring Press in 2021. The Whispering […]
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On Martin Booth’s ‘The Knotting Poems’
The main part of Knotting in 1884. Courtesy of the Bedfordshire County Archives. John Greening It’s unlikely that many readers will remember the original elegant editions of […]
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Two poems by Kathryn Simmonds
Photo by Marten Bjork Premier Inn You, who have been sought in all the lonely places, (should my mouth be berries and ash) will you come […]
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Two poems by Martyn Crucefix
Enviousness You’ve fought this for so long but comes the time you understand you are second rate no more that brightness with which you shone now […]
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Devilled Almonds and Doomed Boys: some avant-garde poetry of 1920
Portrait of Edith Sitwell by Roger Fry, 1915 Mark Valentine The copy of The Wooden Pegasus (1920) by Edith Sitwell that I have is discarded from Sheffield […]
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‘Pigeons’: a poem by Sarah Westcott
Pigeons ‘Men still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons; trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a few […]
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Two poems by Jenny Pagdin
Noah and the catkins I was sickening for psychosis, more than sickening and you were less than two, just starting to talk and I made a […]
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‘But freedom is not so exciting’: Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal
Louis MacNeice by Howard Coster, nitrate negative, 1942. NPG x1624. © National Portrait Gallery, London. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) Jonathan Hitchens ‘Oppression and war’, writes the philosopher Alain […]
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Three poems by Richie McCaffery
© Gerry Cambridge Dead man’s beer They were bundled in a bag for life in the garage, thirty yellow-black tins of Boddingtons like a nest of […]
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‘Grief is like a miracle’: a poem by Helen Calcutt
Grief is like a miracle like opening your mouth for water, and finding rain. You stand for days outside the body of a silent church. Snow […]
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‘Flyleaf, Tractatus’: a poem by Davina Allison
Flyleaf, Tractatus I. A flock of birds down where it’s still, where, each morning, fishermen throw their nets into the river, and they flock in the […]
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Remembering Alexander Hutchison (1943-2015)
Richie McCaffery I told him (hoping to impress him) that I wanted to write an article on his poetry. He rolled his eyes and let out a […]
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Two poems by Sarah Fletcher
The shouts Somewhere, of course, someone is dancing. No, no; not us. Door handles bark and women seem Like babies. Moon. We hopscotch through Prognosticating streetlights, […]
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The Importance of Subjectivity in Ekphrastic Poems by Auden and Plath
Pieter Brueghel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1560 Rachel Carney What happens when you are asked to review a book or a painting? You will undoubtedly […]