You may also wish to listen to poem recordings that have been added to our (small but growing!) digital archive. We have poems there by:
Nadine Brummer, Daphne Gloag, Jennie Osborne, Mimi Khalvati, Lottie Kramer, Gill McEvoy (read by Anne Stewart), Maggie Norton, Elizabeth Soule, Jill Townsend, Marion Tracy and Fiona Ritchie Walker
Select and listen here Poets of the Month (other dates)
Lived in North Wales, Cornwall and London, worked as a journalist – published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies including ‘Ordinary Magic’ and recently commended in the British Red Cross competition which attracted 750 entries worldwide.
It’s all very well allowing him to fling
you up into the air
your purple skirt waving like a flag
above the rooftops
your feet in the clouds
but what will you do if it turns to rain
up in the sky without a hat
those strappy shoes, that scrap of cloth
that hardly passes as a blouse
slipping off your shoulder
to show your luminous skin
your fragile bones
him with fire in his eyes clasping
your hand as if he’d never let you fall
and you so very, very brittle
First published in the French Literary Review
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Clare Crossman grew up in Cumbria and now lives with her husband near Cambridge. She runs poetry workshops for various school and community groups with START Arts and CCC. She has an MA in Theatre Studies, and loves being involved with poetry in performance.
From the small wood, I cut spiked sloes,
regal and hardy, against winter’s grain.
I threaded them through the willow ring,
wired on a paper butterfly, woven with gold silk.
I tied on foil stars, for girls with glittering bracelets,
silver pendants dropping from their ears.
Pine and sandalwood for boys
in dinner suits, dignified and tall as trees.
I placed it in the church porch beside the others.
Who had chosen laurel, lilies to lie on stone.
Ribbons of blue and green for first love,
to keep the memory of the lost, the dead.
Ghosts, amongst twisted strands of bryony stalk,
as dry as straw, and the red dogwood canes.
The light inside was gold, all the lead lights lit.
Carols rang, for miracles, (how a lemon tree flowers in December).
An old man died, bombs blasted lives away,
a child was found in a dark hole.
Those unbroken circles,
that catch and hold how we connect.
In the hope of angels passing over,
to reach across borders with their wings
where all crowns are barbed with distance.
Publications:
The Shell Notebook Poems, in Take 5 04, Shoestring Press.
Fenlight, CD, Sequence of poems and music with acoustic musician, Richard Newman. Performed Cambridge, Norwich, Ely.
tel: 01763 261300
e-mail
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Fokkina McDonnell was born in the Netherlands, but has lived in the UK for most of her adult life. Her poems have been broadcast, and published in over 20 anthologies and magazines, including Orbis, The North, Mslexia, Magma and Poetry News.
Some say it was self-inflicted;
he was tired of his demanding job.
Cosmo says he lost the right arm
in an accident at sea. He asks
me to sign a short disclaimer.
Damian is upstairs doing admin.
Cosmo pulls out a handful
of small beetles, insects, dragonflies
from the pockets on his legs.
I find it hard to choose among
swirling grey wings, shuttling black.
I thought a swift or starling?
Cosmo looks doubtful. He can
do a crow from memory. Yellow
eyes, curved beak, he says,
plucky legs. I can only nod.
Poem published in Strix 3, Spring 2018.
Publications:
Another Life, 2016, Oversteps Books, ISBN 978-1-9068566-7-0
Fokkina McDonnell website
e-mail Fokkina McDonnell
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Brooklyn born, Jamie Dedes, now in Northern California and published widely, is Poet Laureate of Womawords Literary Press (Africa-based international), curator of The Poet by Day (info hub for writers and poets) and Founder/Editor of “The Bezine”.
Dedicated to the Senator Bernie Sanders, running for
the Democratic nomination for president of the United States
The dreams can drive you crazy sometimes
The ones that envision a just world, one
Where equity is the backbone of endurance
A vineyard of bliss, so to speak, a garden of joy
Relative to the greed times of unworthy living
In a penthouse with a golden toilet, while
Others sleep on cardboard outside, urinating
In the streets, begging for lunch and walking
Barefoot in the snow, betrayed from day one
By the false ideal of rugged independence,
Of monied might is alright, of resource hording
By the richest and unconscionable trafficking of
Children for the unhinged pleasures of the elite
Oh my God, how did this happen? and who
Might have thought that the munitions factory
Of a deadly virus would bring us nose to nose?
How COVID-19 recognizes no bank account or
Prestigious position, just drops its noxious tidbits
Indiscrimanently, into lungs of princes, prime ministers
Those sleeping rough on city streets, its travels
Enhanced by an uneven distribution of access
To water, healthcare, space, living wages,
Paid time off, the rudiments of a civilized life
Girded by compassionate societies, lessons
Learned, we await implementation, and
Dare we move beyond yearning to hope
Originally published in Brave Voices journal
Jamie Dedes blog: The Poet by Day
Jamie Dedes The Poet by Day Facebook page
Monthly Arts e-zine The BeZine
e-mail Jamie Dedes
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Jenny Hamlett has an MA in creative writing, has facilitated writing workshops and was Poet in Residence for Cassies, a garden on the Isle of Wight. She organised Penzance Poetry Society Stanza and is the current Treasurer of Moor Poets in Devon.
Kinlochleven
Discovered late evening
the fall
is the colour of a woman’s hair
as she strides
her last few years.
This sheer beauty
offers no pulling back
from the uninhibited
plunge
down vertical rock
a snatching of time,
hurling it
into the pool.
If seconds were iron bars
she could jam
in the cog wheels of a mill
she could not keep them,
against this grey fall.
Better to turn away
climb
one slow, hard step
after another towards
the winter pass
at Lairigmor.
in collection Playing Alice, Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2017;
previously in ARTEMISpoetry Issue 7, 2011
and Words in Air app, 2013
Publications:
Playing Alice, 2017, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-1-9108343-2-9
Talisman, 2009, Indigo Dreams Publishing, ISBN 978-0-9561991-9-5
The Sandtiger, 1994, Longman, ISBN 0-582-12169-8
Jenny Hamlett at poetry p f
e-mail Jenny Hamlett
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Lynne Wycherley finds herself drawn to light-haunted landscapes – a legacy, perhaps, of childhood by the Fens. Her lyrical and sometimes metaphysical poems have featured widely. (Her recent prizes include the Second Light poetry competition and the E.A. Fellows’ Prize).
Beyond the Barrier, fear’s grey wall,
it appears from nowhere –
a strip of blue, transcendent blue,
as if a thousand kingfishers
fell from heaven.
Glance again and it’s gone,
mist’s sleight of hand,
its voltage trace still printed on your soul.
* Barrier – Churchill Barrier (Scapa Flow)
in collection Poppy in a Storm-Struck Field
Publications:
Poppy in a Storm-struck Field, 2009, Shoestring Press, ISBN 978-1-907356-00-1. £9.
North Flight, 2006, Shoestring Press.
At the Edge of Light, 2003, Shoestring Press.
Fens Poems (‘A Sea of Dark Fields’), 2000, Hilton House pamphlets.
Cracks in the Ice, 1999, Acumen Occasional Pamphlet Series.
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
Mimi Khalvati is the founder of The Poetry School, is on the Council of Management of the Arvon Foundation, the Editorial Board of Wasafiri and is a PBS selector. Her latest collection is The Meanest Flower (Carcanet 2007, PBS Recommendation).
Through a thin spray of flowers from the valley
(and frailer for the shyness you gave them with),
through sprigs of blue, their minute suns, many
and angled to many corners of the earth,
I saw, not the valley or even the hill
that rose in front of me, but half-imagined
plateaux that lay beyond these disused mills:
meadows waist-high, horizons mountain-rimmed.
Wildflowers grow there in abundance, so many
you could reap armfuls of them, cauldrons
of colour stoked with their dyes, cornflowers, teasels
snarling your hair and on your headscarf, apron,
shirt and shawl, the whole sky would spill a pinny
studded with seeds. But thank you, thank you for these.
Poem published in collection, The Meanest Flower
Most Recent Publications, all from Carcanet:
The Meanest Flower, 2007. PBS Recommendation. Short-listed for TS Eliot Prize.
The Chine, 2002.
Mimi Khalvati: Selected Poems, 2000.
Entries on Light, 1997.
Mirrorwork, 1995, ACE Writer's Award.
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
On Cigarette Papers, Pam Zinnemann-Hope’s debut collection, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. It was adapted by her for the Afternoon Play on radio 4 in which she also acted. She runs poetry seminars near Dorchester.
On the day my bankrupt father married me off
the luck sat more in my husband’s cup
than mine, believe me. Lazar broke the glass
for us in Krakow; a broken glass
is meant to bring you luck. But I’d already
turned my back on my dreams, cut up
my ball-gown stitched with seed pearls,
the dumb song-birds on my own embrodiery;
I spoke sternly to my tiny stubborn heart;
I stood straight with Lazar under the canopy;
I dropped my eyes to his uncultured vowels.
What could I do while the gold band slid
onto my finger? Make a secret vow:
never forgive my father, or fall in love.
in collection On Cigarette Papers, Ward Wood, 2012
Publications:
On Cigarette Papers, Ward Wood, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9568969-8-8
Who’s In The Next Room, HappenStance, 2010, ISBN 978-1-9059395-1-0
4 Ned books, Walker Books, 1986/7/8, ISBN 978-0-744 5062-6-6 (& 3 following)
NW15, Anthology of New Writing, Granta, 2007
Pam Zinnemann-Hope at Ward Wood
Copyright© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet