by Helen Ivory | Feb 26, 2017 | 2017 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Damp The damp that squats in gritstone hearts of two-bed terraces. The stumble of rooftops polished dark as funeral brogues. The promiscuity of green, having its way with every crack and hole, every startled moss that punks from rock and stump....
by Helen Ivory | Feb 21, 2017 | 2017 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Two Attempts at a Theory of History All I want to say Is that perhaps history Means the striking of a match In a doorway to protect the flame From half-hearted sleet or mizzling rain. Or, seen another way, What history represents Is a choir of the...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 18, 2017 | 2017 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Goldfish on the Coast How close we came to leaving each other on the hard shoulder, walking in different directions, following the line of fields for lonely miles then hitching a lift – me toward the sea, you with a spirit level back to the...
by Kate Birch | Feb 17, 2017 | 2017 poetry picks, Blogs & News
When we published our latest shortlist, we noted that it looked to the displaced and the vulnerable so it is perhaps no surprise that Rachael Smart’s ‘Waiting’, a poem that speaks to the vulnerability that is personal to so many of us, is our Pick...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 14, 2017 | 2017 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Cupid and Me The day Cupid lost his arrows Dan never walked over to Paula on reception and asked her to the cinema, so they never kissed on the back row and that, in turn, meant that he never asked her to marry him that night at the fair, in front of the...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 12, 2017 | 2017 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
In my father’s pocket Feel that square of paper in your jacket pocket next to your heart. Unfold it. Hold it out if you need to. “This is my father. He is loved, not lost. Please bring him home and when you have read this, put the paper back in...
