I was reminded, recently, of something I blurted out, years ago, at a ‘roundtable’ on the shady business of poetry publishing. Apparently, barely into the job at Poetry London, I …
To Feel Held by Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Victoria Adukwei Bulley appreciates three debut collections that understand the weight of language Raymond Antrobus The Perseverance Penned in the Margins £9.99 Zaffar Kunial Us Faber £10.99 Sohini Basak we …
A Radical History of the World: Fred D’Aguiar talks to Leo Boix
A few hours before the poet, novelist and playwright Fred D’Aguiar was preparing to launch his eighth collection, Translations from Memory (Carcanet, 2018), I met with him to talk about …
The Ethics of Perspective by Will Harris
Will Harris on poetry and the moral subject ‘Perspective’ makes me think of the art class in which we were taught to draw a tree-lined path. I had to pick …
Communality and Consequence by Helen Charman
Helen Charman examines the ethics of two collections grounded in Christian scripture Jericho Brown The New Testament Picador £10.99 Toby Martinez de las Rivas Black Sun Faber £10.99 Jericho Brown’s …
Airplane Above My Bed by Matthew Dickman
Did I die before I was born? Did I have to have a body first, wasn’t I a nobody before I was a baby on earth? Wasn’t I a sucker …
Neon Void by Dorothea Lasky
I lost the will to live Or I never had it St Anthony of Padua St Anthony the ascetic in the desert St Antonio’s The dark wood where I never …
The Daughter Channel by Daisy Lafarge
What’s on the Daughter Channel, old bad goose? Violet aggro, incarnadine sulk a recitation from the Book of Lack Half-baked breadcrumb narratives toed just-so in the floorboard crack So no …
Sun Rises in Mid-City, LA by Fred D’Aguiar
Call for wings, alligator skin, eagle eyes, dog ears, leopard speed GPS coordinates if body ever hopes to slip that helicopter whose searchlight combs late night revelers, two-job commuters, down …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 COMMENDED 4: After Zhao Mengfu’s Bathing Horses by Tarn MacArthur
Now the warring is over the ritual begins, and those men we’ve come to know in blood and barbarism return again to the heart’s work of tending to its love, …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 COMMENDED 3: A Rumble In Vina del Mar by Jenny McCartney
In Vina del Mar In the swirl of traffic by the sea Everything feels skew-whiff Stiff with salt and gasoline Men mend cars by the side of the road Like …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 COMMENDED 2: Tiger Gran by Pascale Petit
My grandmother of the flying electric blanket, who speaks Hindi in her sleep, who has gharials in her black eyes behind steamed-up glasses, a long nose like a mountain between …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 COMMENDED 1: Under London by Victor Tapner
Joseph Bazalgette, Victorian civil engineer and builder of the city’s sewer network As the lid closes on Hammersmith Road, muffling the crunch of brewers’ carts, stifling shouts from laundry windows, …
The Condition of Intimacy by Jess Cotton in conversation with Ariana Reines
When I first read Ariana Reines’s third collection Mercury in 2011, I was blown away by the distinctiveness of her poetic voice and by the honesty of the writing. With …
Wildly Unmothered by Daisy Lafarge
Dear Rachel, I hope this finds you well and you don’t mind my getting in touch. We met briefly in February in Tucson – I was visiting with my partner …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 THIRD PRIZE: Heaven by Selima Hill
We take a yellow cabbage to the hens then carry on downhill to the boats, my uncle in his little crumpled hat, me in shorts, half-hidden in the hair my …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 SECOND PRIZE: Children of the Revolution by S K Kim
for my cousins First the meat disappeared from our rations, then the rice, then the barley and millet, then the rations vanished. _____ We caught croakers, cuttlefish, hauled creels of …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2018 FIRST PRIZE: Names by Romalyn Ante
‘We are nameless and all names are ours.’ – Emmanuel Lacaba My mother’s name is Rosana, but when she left, I had other mothers. Rowena, Jimboy, Alma. I was named …
An Epidemic of the Heart by A K Blakemore
Three seductive, political first collections Richard Scott Soho Faber £10.99 Abigail Parry Jinx Bloodaxe £9.95 Leah Umansky The Barbarous Century Eyewear £10.99 Sometimes when I feel like punishing myself I …
The mother dream by Rebecca Perry
Daughter, the door is open. For once leave the raincloud outside. Learn how to get along with offal for the sake of your iron levels. Squeamishness will get you nowhere …