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 […]

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 […]

        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 […]

        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 […]

        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 […]

   © 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 […]

        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 […]

        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 […]

        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, […]

        Happy Birthday   …You clear them away, usher in a future not featuring you. Michael Laskey, ‘Birthday Cards’   While hunting the posh cutlery for my cousin’s […]

        The Train   The concern, unspoken amongst us, was whether goodwill would hold. We’d been on the road for weeks; children walking alongside the wagons until they […]

    Waterland   There are still pike in Jesus Ditch. The length of three finger-joints, quicker than dactyls. Gone before you can say ‘Jack Pickerel.’ Drowned land, drained land, […]

        Dear Mother You’re Dying   You are wasting away, you have cavernous sinuses and hollow flesh. Eat gracefully: there are those that are starving, you told us […]

        Death of a Trophy Hunter   Over the kill the larvae loom she posted on Instagram before the blood congealed, paid in dollars for the fun. Trophy […]

         Urban   Drawn to our open lawns and clipped verges, the spectral profusion of a well-stocked border or neat geometrical bed, they tiptoe across our phantom […]

Photo credit: Brian Fraser     The below poems appear in Pascale Petit’s new collection Tiger Girl, forthcoming from Bloodaxe in June.          Mongoose Brushes   After my […]

  The below poem will appear in Katrina’s third collection, Wild Persistence, forthcoming from Seren this June.         House as Tent   You walk uphill to sleep, downhill […]

  The below poems are taken from Bob Beagrie’s new collection Civil Insolencies (Smokestack), which tells the story of the Civil War battle of Guisborough in North Yorkshire on 16 […]

        Back End   of February and the drifts are up to the eaves. On the old folks’ bungalows, startled faces at the glass shrink behind their curtains. […]