Poetry | The Line by Fiona Sampson
White trunks divide the dark
beside the line
and in the dusk trees pausesince if they do not move they cannot
see themselves
or know this moment has...
Poetry | Letter to Bez by Chris McCabe
Bez, post-Victorian Boz, Viz incarnate / and Viceroy of the sinew, what is the name / for light that detracts from the stars? / Urban pollutants de-lux distant galaxies / as we walk after / parties through school fields, / via car parks, past vacant vats & waste lots [...]
Poetry | Atlantic Palimpsest by Kerri ní Dochartaigh
-for Heaney and the Peace BridgeGrey and greying sky
reflected in choppy body,
as our matching heron
performs his balancing act for all to see.The Donegal hills,...
Men by Belinda Rule
I only like imaginary
men,
the ones who think
my art is
the most transporting
thing they have ever seen,
and I am exactly as
hilarious as I actually,
actually am.Even then,...
Poetry | Woman by Manash Bhattacharjee
Woman
“It’s easy, impossible, hard, worth trying.”
~ Wislawa Szymborska, “Portrait of a Woman” (1976)She is intimately attached
To night and day.
Only...
Coming Thunder by James McAskill
When we stole the eggs from the barn that June
you said we held life in our hands. Untrue I said as I carried a near...
Archive | Poetry | Peter Bland
Peter Bland, the New Zealand writer and actor, has written extensively over his long career, and has been lauded with many accolades, among them...
Flash Fiction | Never Fall For That by Rebecca Lilly
"Clarify your intent," — Lama Chopra, ourmeditation teacher, rang the bell for us tosit — "the Reaper was once an old friend."My...
Poetry | The Sleepers by Sylvia Plath
No map traces the street
Where those two sleepers are.
We have lost track of it.
They lie as if under water
In a blue, unchanging light,
The French...
Two Hundred Twenty a Kilo by Nabarun Bhattacharya, translated by Manash...
(Homage to Karl Marx)Nabarun Bhattacharya
(23 June 1948 – 31 July 2014)On the floor of a slaughterhouse
A butcher’s leg slips in the blood
Crows go raucous...
News | Waltham Forest Borough of Culture 2019 — The People’s...
The People's Forest — a literary strand to Waltham Forest's programme as the first ever London Borough of Culture this year — has recently...
Archive | Poetry | Rin Ishigaki
Known in Japan as the 'bank clerk poet', with her work frequently featuring in the bank newsletter where she was employed, Ishigaki's poetry stretches...
Puddocks by John Greening
for SECH Clare would have called
these five red kitescircling above dead
or stag’s-headed oakslike iambs broken from
a line of English pastoralby a name that signifies
a deed...
Replete by Maggie Butt
RepleteEnough of beauty - I have devoured
small boats curtseying at anchor,
green palace-dotted hills swarming
the spice-scented shore of Asia Minor.I couldn’t chew another mouthful
of waves,...
Review | Leminscate by Chris Viner
Leminscate, Chris Viner, Unsolicited Press, 2017, pp. 72
The 6th isn’t busy.
Six days since the attack
And inside the Monoprix
The aisles of life still reel...
Refugees by Manash Bhattacharjee
RefugeesI know a thing or two
about refugees –As a child I heard father
say, “We were sleeping
in the place we thought
was our country, till
the siren rang...
Review | The Triumph of Cancer by Chris McCabe
The scientific language used by doctors to describe cancer—the uncontrollable growth of a single cell—is often mystifying and alienating. Can the experience of cancer...
Poetry | Poem by Kyriakos Frangoulis
The moon is a sealed coffin
A boast
The moon of poets
The moon of dogs
The moon of ovaries
The moon of astronauts
The invisible moon
Knived
Sick
Yellow
Waning
Moon-wreath of everyday
Moon of...
Poetry | The Older Touches by Bibhu Padhi
There are times when I remember / all of them fondly enough for them / to be here once more, all around / this house, which is far away from / where they were around, and at this hour, / far away again from my childhood fears. / Now I can just think of them. And / what is thinking except the mind’s / imaginings, the heart speaking to itself / in the darkness of default, fearing alien / ears, the world’s participation in the shame / of being touched in front of others? [...]
Review | Letters To A First Love From The Future by...
Andy Armitage's pamphlet is among a number of new releases from the poetry press Half-Moon Books, which is based in Otley, West Yorkshire, where...
Review | Rough Trade Books | Series 3
The recently-launched Rough Trade Books imprint has been releasing pamphlets at a prolific rate since the summer of last year, bringing us highly collectable...
What You Call Your ‘Winter Mode’ by Patri Wright
On the wicker chair I wait for the duvet’s rise:
you’re just a mound, breath,
as I worry over why, again, you’ve overslept.
Could it be early...
Catalogue of Minor Extinctions by Tyler Raso
i. labrador duck Sitting at a disrespectful distance—
---------back where they came from—gets
defensive when blinking (like only
---------shepherds have a right to).welcoming wreckage to its homeland by
---------sailboat...
Snowbound by Michael O’Neill
SnowboundCarriages lit and still between the drifts ...
With each flake it took on a new form,
the city they seemed exiled from ---
almost a sad,...