New work
-
Two poems by Anna Chorlton
Welcombe Moonlight exposes a split ship releasing souls. One – naked torso gleaming – battles toward shore, arcing arms throttling breakers, eyes fixated on a cove flecked with witness. A soul released from turmoil, from wild hounds, rising, howling, he stands tall on rough sand, ruthless eyes roaming. Why sea, did…
-
‘The Bunkers at Wissant’ – a poem by Will Stone
The below poem is taken from Will Stone’s latest poetry collection, The Slowing Ride, published by Shearsman last autumn. The Bunkers at Wissant Once they were masters of the horizon, the steel of their blast doors shone, the barrels in their clean mouths moved confidently side to side, up…
-
‘Namái Ye Un Ayeri’ – a poem in Asturian and English by Xe M. Sánchez
Namái Ye Un Ayeri los poemes aseméyense abondu a eses ciudaes que les lleendes alluguen baxu les agües o sapozaes baxu les viesques. namái surden dende’l pasáu p’amosamos que nos, la xente d’anguañu, namái tamos fechos de pallabres pantasmes. poro pescancié que ye imposible imaxinar el futuru con pallabres vieyes y…
-
‘Witness’ – a poem by Regina Weinert
Witness Once I saw my Masurian grandmother’s hair fall in pale amber waves over her left shoulder like a spell. She was half-facing the window, perched on the armchair’s edge, head inclined to the side, in swift ritual. She wove three strands into a tress from the nape to below the waist…
-
‘Untitled Film Still’ – a poem by Daniel Fraser
Untitled Film Still Cindy Sherman, 1979 A woman. A road. A suitcase. Synapses glitter, searching for the rest. Her body shoulders a hymn called nowhere: hair a ruff of pale rockwool, face vanished over bromine hills. Four blunt pines light blackened candles. The lake is an eye that returns your…
-
Two poems by Nell Prince
The River The river cannot settle where to go. It may go under or it may begin again, it may rise up and change its forward flow. The river can’t decide. It doesn’t know. The sky won’t tell us anything but rain. The sky is just reflection of below. So what…
-
‘Waverley, 4.05.’ – a poem by John Fuller
The below poem is taken from John Fuller’s new, semi-autobiographical collection of poetry, Asleep & Awake, recently published by Chatto & Windus. Waverley, 4.05. At Waverley, at Waverley, Although I didn’t show it, I knew a certain thing that Needed knowing, At Waverley. A resolve in the heart Deeper than…
-
Two poems by Yuan Changming
I vs 我: Another Bilinguacultural Poem The first person singular pronoun, or this very Writing subject in English is I , an only-letter Word, standing straight like a pole, always Capitalized, but in Chinese, it is written with Lucky seven strokes as 我 , with at least 108 Variations, all of…
-
Three poems by Patricia McCarthy
Below are three poems from Patricia McCarthy’s new chapbook-length sequence Whose hand would you like to hold…, published by Agenda Editions, written during lockdown. Patricia has written about the sequence for The High Window here. from Whose hand would you like to hold… IV Holy week, our childhood voices…
-
‘Purple Pintle’ – a poem by Rory Waterman
Purple Pintle About and by Dr Bob Pintle Associate Professor in Professional Creativity, Peterborough University and for Dr Andrew Taylor, who did not inspire it His end-of-term Zoom seminars were fine. Students logged on, saw that he was there but no-one else was, then logged out again: their logos would appear…
-
Two poems by Fiona Larkin
Recognition It’s time to welcome the magnolia, her pink flushed cups, petals tight on black twigs, her cold courage, a clench of fuck yous aimed at winter. No one picks her. Twisted off, she’d taste astringent as chicory, puckering the mouth, resisting all the way. You can’t drink from her acid…
-
‘The Smallest Distillery in Scotland’ – a poem by Ben Verinder
The Smallest Distillery in Scotland Donaghy found me behind the whisky stills and suffered my story: faith, boiled down to a mash of schoolboy memory – the creaking pew, shot of hymn, blood trickles down the gaunt white lolling face, that feeling someone famous just left the room. Highland monks, he…
-
‘New Delhi, Beyond the AQI’, a poem by Anannya Uberoi
New Delhi, Beyond the AQI The king’s lane, papayawhip-paved. Smog on the lemonade children. By November, everything underwater. Crop-burn and tobacco clouds on evening sounds: fast-car honk, tin snips on sheets, railroad tracks. Old canard that the city drowns in its own black cloud. Not even the Ganges-sister, in her tar-pits…
-
‘Encounter’, a version of Baudelaire, by Stuart Henson
Encounter Traffic was howling in my ears and eyes that moment when we passed—she in her slim black dress, a gloved hand tugging up the hem— and for one instant all things clarified. Those slo-mo seconds in a film when fate throws two together and the soundtrack dims and he looks…
-
Two poems by Natalie Linh Bolderston
Thất Tịch Seventh Month, Saigon, 1975 They share a dish of beans like small blood clots, believing they will one day wake to a tea ceremony, mâm quả, a blessing written on the wall. She rides home on the front of his bicycle as their city reddens. She threads seven…
-
Two poems by Nick Makoha
Codex 3 We were thirty. Another day was ending as a mosquito landed at the edge of my hand. You ordered two beers, to pour ourselves into, at the airport bar. Each sip a minute of absence as a bird trapped in the atrium flew in the direction of our gate. Flight…
-
Three poems by Daniel Bennett
Figures in a Landscape Remember when the country offered a pathway to freedom? The creek lanes and brooks and railway arches, spaces we filled with imagination and talk. Often talk. Abroad along the edges of wheat fields and rural car parks, any escape from our essentially loving households, where indulgence stuck…
-
‘For a Coming Extinction’: a poem by Pascale Petit
Image credit: © Brian Fraser King’s College London’s popular ‘Poetry And..’ series, chaired by Professor of Poetry Ruth Padel, returns on 30th November at 5pm with ‘Poetry And… The Wild in a Time of Coronavirus’, an online event with prize-winning poet Pascale Petit and award-winning wildlife film-maker Shekar Dattatri. More details, including how to…
-
New poems by John Greening
To mark the publication day of his Vapour Trails: Reviews and Essays on Poetry (Shoestring Press), Wild Court is featuring four new poems by John Greening. The first three are from an extended sequence about the historic county of Huntingdonshire, where he lives. Vapour Trails is a survey of modern poetry, gathering reviews…
-
‘Mephitine’: a poem by Sarah Doyle
Mephitine You will know me before you see me, will sense me from twenty paces. I am all sour milk top-notes, that pissy catch in the back of your throat while you try, politely, not to gag. The never-fresh, wearing a coat ripe with my own history, I assail your…