-
‘The Cats’ – a translation of Baudelaire by Georgia Gildea
Charles Baudelaire c. 1862-63; woodburytype of a portrait by Étienne Carjat Les Chats Les amoureux fervents et les savants austèresAiment également, dans leur mûre saison,Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires. Amis de la science et de la voluptéIls cherchent le silence et l’horreur des ténèbres;L’Erèbe…
-
‘Nearly No Memory’: a poem by Peter Robinson
Nearly No Memory Myopic eyes with specs’ transparent frames,shy look and wealth of auburn hair,my mother in that teenage photois posed by her dad, both hands behind her head;and I can see him ruffle that hair,patting her head by way of compensation(not being granddad’s favourite)and how I would resent it,mum treated like a child in…
-
Two douzaines from ‘Still’ by Alan Buckley
Below are two poems from Alan Buckley’s collection Still, published by Blue Diode Press in 2025. The collection consists solely of ‘douzaines’, a form invented by the author. Under the two examples included here, Alan writes about the genesis and structure of the form. Stream And in the year my skin wasabandoned, I walked…
-
Pithy and poised: On James Peake’s ‘The Third City’
Daniel Bennett James Peake’s third book, The Third City (Two Rivers Press, 2025), is a short collection of around 40 pages, but it represents a fifteen-minute city of intimacy and history. I liked the use of the first person in the work here, the sliding sense of someone who is there but always ahead…
-
‘Damson Cheese’: a poem by Nicola Healey
Damson Cheese I watched you stir a jam potwhen I came up to oven height.An alchemist’s work stationwould not have held more wonder.Testing to see if it was set, a hot droppedglob was a molten jewel. Your stern warnings not to touchcharged the air with a compulsionto touch, the way a museum sign does. The…
-
Two poems from ‘Divided Tongues’ by Patrick Davidson Roberts
Below are two poems from Divided Tongues, the new collection from Patrick Davidson Roberts, published this month by Broken Sleep Books. Patrick will be part of Broken Sleep’s forthcoming online launch reading event on 2nd January. Details here. Aphrodite I am comforted by couples composed of people younger than mewho seem to be on…
-
Two poems by Idman Omar
Sick Day in the still working hours, this place satin its own plasma hustling its rentedland to no one, silence on crunchy roads mostly up to theirelbows in racket and blaring commotion, people and dogs and metal stirring.starved hills, stairway carcases, seized up cars. it pined, held its fire& was itself completely on earth’s shallow…
-
‘Comet C/2023 A3’: a poem by Gregory Leadbetter
Below is a poem from Gregory Leadbetter’s new collection The Infernal Garden, recently published by Nine Arches Press. Comet C/2023 A3 The watchers called, all world wide, for whathad not been seen since human firesburned so low they let the nightetch the mind with all its stars. I heard, and wanted that cold touch.I saw…
-
‘Monbazillac’: a poem by Julie Irigaray
Monbazillac We know she’s going to die soon,so we’ve started clearing out her house. We spend our evenings sorting throughGranny’s photos: Mum throws all the albums from her trips with her club into the binbecause none of her friends have visited her since she’s been in the nursing home.We find a cardboard folder on which…
-
‘If Only I Moved by Instinct’: a poem by D.R. James
If Only I Moved by Instinct Life has been a grand migrationto where you are today!— well-known wisdom I didn’t know! Otherwise,when those raggedy squadronsclamored overhead last evening— three V’s disarrayedlike frayed arrow feathers, their leaders insistent as clownswith braying horns, honkingfor plane geometry— I would have taxied, sprinted,lifted arthriticlyfrom water’s edge (granted more dodo…
-
‘Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor’: a poem by Elena Croitoru
Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor It was the way he touched his mother’s neckthat first gave him the idea. Her vocal cordstrembled under his yet-delicate fingers,& he thought of that warmth when he fastenedan iron rod to the piano chords & bit it until he could feel the first few notes of his sonatareverberating in…
-
A Hobby of Existence: on Dastidar, Sastry, Vince, & Winn
Kevin Gardner According to the randomness of the laws of the universe, or at least of the postal service, I will occasionally receive by mail, in quick succession, review copies of poetry books that have very little in common with each other in terms of form and subject. My instinct is to treat them separately,…
-
Two poems by Jay Caldwell
Deceit I talk to you now more than I ever did;long chats about zen, or work, or musicwhile I walk the dog around Torside.Pausing we watch a deceit of lapwings,newly arrived from France or Spain,as they plummet towards unsteadylambs, then wheel away laughing. Hard to believe this time last yearwe were barrelling down the M1to…
-
Two poems by Nicholas Murray
Ash Wednesday The smudge of ashfrom a priest’s thumbmarked us. As we stepped awayfrom the altar steps,the forty days to come a test of our selected abstinence,giving up sweet thingsfor the pleasure of denial. Once it was sugarto mortify the soul;decades on, I raise my hand when tea is offered,blocking the sweetnessthey would impose. My…
-
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 everset foot on land; the chug and wash to themare sweet as lullabies rocking cradles;I saw one once step up onto a quay, staggertwo long…
-
‘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 leaning on the other armto bird feel of Midwestern cloudwith plane moan and car door closings sifted throughthe open window with staccato promptsin counterpoint with…
-
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 Visitor (Worple) in 2016. This Summer I want something as wonderful as living in this summerWith cat’s ear and hawkbit both out-yellowing a grass,Which is…
-
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 half a century’s creative work, A High Calling provides anecdotes and literary insights interwoven with autobiographical sketches and original poems. An online launch for the…
-
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 I pass on the two-hour circuit occasionally fills a crate with unwanted plants to ‘take for free’ – what I find, I plant. Sometimes there…
-
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 buried memories (those magical Proustian bursts), so is a source of deep inspiration; a smell stimulates feeling, thought and vitality, acting on the brain more…