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Philosophy
Imogen Wade
I used to be enamoured with the concept of an ungendered soul, maybe because I knew what was waiting for me. These days I'm more woman than poet, more woman than person. There's an insistent tug in my stomach, like being pulled by the hand into another room: a wobbling clot drops onto the bathroom tiles, blood getting in the grout. There's beauty in this. I've met men who struggle with birth, maybe it's why they invented immaterial souls. As if essence can ever be separated from skin. Dualism, I think, born of a faint disgust for the body. As if I was any further from God with the weight of Bea in my lap: yesterday afternoon, by the river. And if I can only reach Heaven as a person and not as a woman, I want no part. I can't be a child again. And I would give up everything else I love—books, clouds, dreams, countries—for this blood-soaked floor.
Imogen Wade is a poet and writer. She won the National Poetry Competition 2023 and the Troubadour Poetry Prize 2024. She has received acclaim in other awards, such as the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, the New Poets Prize, and the Montreal International Poetry Competition. Her work has been published by The Poetry Review, PN Review, and The London Magazine, among others. When she isn’t writing, she can be found at her day job in the mental health sector. Her debut collection Girl, Swooning will be published in March 2026 by Corsair.
