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The confessional as poetry’s play within a play: on Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Matthew Stewart Deeply personal collections, packed with poems that narrate break-ups and emotional turmoil, tend to encourage the reader to narrow the distance between the poet and the lyrical ‘I’ […]
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‘Zandvoort Fishergirl’: a poem by Helen Evans
‘The Zandvoort Fishergirl’ by Elizabeth Adela Forbes, 1884. Penlee Gallery Zandvoort Fishergirl after the painting by Elizabeth Adela Forbes Left hand on her hip, her right hand balancing an earthenware […]
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Two poems by Daragh Byrne
Back to Life The pub was closed for Christ’s yearly dying. Good Friday — regulars filed in, prisoners who felt they were better off inside, claimed aptitudes for carpentry […]
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Four poems by Dan O’Brien
Image © Cambridge Jones Below are four prose poems by Dan O’Brien from his new collection, Survivor’s Notebook, which chronicles the family life of two cancer survivors. The collection is […]
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‘Murky Waters’: a poem by Stephen Grace
Image by Broadreach from Pixabay Murky Waters On a field by a lake in Manitoba a woman presses her hand to the wind. She is learning to read […]
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Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2023 joint winner: Bianca Denise Layog
Bianca Denise Layog Colour Study I live next to a lake for four years. In this way I am unlike my mother. Even now, my dreams are foreign […]
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Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2023 joint winner: Laura Dent
Laura Dent My forest bed where green comes in swathes and leaves sway with calm susurrus at home among the gaps that I walk through trees extending […]
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Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2023 joint winner: Thomas Storey
Thomas Storey Muggy She hailed a taxi like throwing a coin like casting a spell like floating over and above the damp street like expelling some irretrievable thing […]
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Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2023 runner up: Amalia Costa
Amalia Costa
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Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2023 runner up: Alberta N’guessan
Alberta N’guessan
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On ‘Toys / Tricks / Traps’ by Christopher Reid
Mark Wynne Whilst Christopher Reid has often disguised deeply autobiographical work behind sophisticated role play – the fictional female translator of an Eastern European poet in the extraordinary Katerina Brac […]
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‘A Quidam’: a poem by Steven Toussaint
A Quidam I’d been casualised again, High ChurchAssignations likely the cause. No free lunches.Only fans. I let them watch me researchLatinity in poetry today. My hunch was Quantity callously tugged […]
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‘Yes’: a poem by Christine Roseeta Walker
Yes In our uniforms, blue dress and white blouse, we climbed the school wall under the poinciana tree, until we could see inside the station grounds. I wasn’t sure what […]
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‘And the award for best actress goes to’: a poem by Polly McCormack
And the award for best actress goes to The days bleed into each other like a radiator. I have trained myself to not think […]
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Two poems by Ben McGuire
Gone Everywhere The news was Luke – through my fingers. Out of my fists. Beyond me then, but there in every room. He’d caught the ball and thrown it back […]
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Two poems by Kenneth Pobo
Crimsons Bobolinko packs his basket with fried chicken, croutons, lime-aid, cherry pie and a Big Boy tomato, finds a private spot by the river, […]
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‘Rife with schools of shadow’: on the poetry of James Peake
Lily Searstone Through fragmented visions and memories, James Peake’s second collection, The Star in the Branches (Two Rivers, 2022), seamlessly distils the past, the starkness of […]
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Three poems by Nicola Healey
Photo by Alicia Healey Veteran Beech ‘I see a picture that thy fate displays / And learn a lesson from thy destiny’ – John […]
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‘Work of Forgetting’: a poem by Rowland Bagnall
Image by Shruti Khanna from Pixabay Work of Forgetting I travel by a stagecoach often down adventurous avenues, wool -gathering a landscape through which […]
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On ‘The Storm in the Piano’ by Christopher James
Neil Elder Christopher James – winner of the 2008 National Poetry Competition and author of several volumes of poetry – remains “criminally underrated”, as Martin Malone once […]