Karen Solie writes about poetry in the age of climate crisis I In his 1965 memoir The Road Across Canada, Irish-born and Alberta-raised novelist Edward McCourt lamented the country’s excesses: ‘Too much …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2019: Highly Commended
Catherine Higgins-Moore I’d been waiting months For a house in the new estate. They weren’t allowed murals. They’d built-in kitchens. Tarmaced driveways. An address that didn’t mark your card. I …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2019: Highly Commended
Nicholas Murray WODGE I’d like to think it was our tongues,recalcitrant, not coldly mocking,that made the new boy into “Wodge”.The best that we could do. So Wodziński, the doctor’s son,shared …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2019: 3rd PRIZE
Anita Pati Manju Because he liked the toddy,because he twinkled for her,he beat her.Because he towered andshe was a bird, because he was sousedand the kerosene caskto cook sabzi exploded it …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2019: 2nd PRIZE
Amaan Hyder duas a dua for my mother the head girl / leaving school a year early to be married to move to england / the headmistress announcing it at …
Poetry London Clore Prize 2019: 1st PRIZE
Roger Bloor The Ghost of Molly Leigh Pleads, Yes Cries for Exemplarie Justice Against the Arbitrarie, Un-exampled Injustice of Her Accusers Question the First: By which Devils are the Operations …
from ‘New Cemetery’
Simon Armitage ~ dear Hey Lane Cemetery Resident Poet, a.k.a. self-appointed Clerk of Works (Cadavers Division), a.k.a. one-man Inspectorate of Graveyard Bins; why shouldn’t plots be sunk by banana-yellow Caterpillars …
Things Already Lost
Anthony Anaxagorou A dead rat could be a dead lung except nobody wants to touch a dead rat without gloves. At the end of the funeral my son asks when …
Very
Mimi Khalvati Very… the very first time that I heard – or worked out what it meant since at that age English was still a mystery – the word ‘very’, …
Where’s Wally?
Lucy Mercer My aunt tells me elderly Halloween stories of her friends’ husbands exploding blood all over the curtains. I cover the holes in my face – I am filled …
Your Whole Blood System
Karen McCarthy Woolf talks to Ishion Hutchinson about poetry, islands and the sea as an enduring preoccupation and presence KMW: The sea is a strong motif in your work – a presence …
‘My words are buried deep’
Kate Potts reads three collections that focus on reclaimed and reimagined voices Jane Yeh Discipline Carcanet £9.99 Julia Copus Girlhood Faber £14.99 J O Morgan Assurances Cape £10.00 Jane Yeh’s third …
Not a Secret Power
Nisha Ramayya outlines the political stakes in poetry at the intersection of feminism and the occult Francesca Lisette sub rosa: The Book of Metaphysics Boiler House Press £10 MacGillivray The Gaelic …
Editorial: Cathedral Thinking
Martha Sprackland One day a man of the people said to Zen Master Ikkyū: ‘Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?’ Ikkyū immediately took his …
