by Helen Ivory | Nov 13, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Five Times 1 Mother rubs her eyes at the kitchen table. Says she’s drunk. The midnight light stares at me, and I wait for the shade of bed. 2 I am almost naked under a duvet of dried grass cuttings. The morning sun warms me in this hidden place,...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 9, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Home Truths Here are the woods, managed by a skilled crew, and one good straight birch picked out with a red stripe — is it condemned or chosen? Here are the characters: the magpies check out glitter for the nest, the crows fidget in the wind,...
by Kate Birch | Nov 5, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks
Warkworth The pelt drags me across sand like a drown animal. I walk miles, eyes fixed on Birling Carrs, a lime light of seaweed and coal. Birds nesting in cliff face , a chorus stuck in a skull. I didn’t know what was here, buried by tides. I...
by Kate Birch | Nov 5, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks
On becoming a bee Choosing when was difficult. What time of year? Winter could get me five months or so, if you were lucky enough to make the cut, to be spent mostly in the hive. Bee Hygge? Honey-scented? I’m over romanticising. It’ll be clustered...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 5, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
First Birth The two owls shout from the rooftop A hurricane of bats flies around, A father devours his own child in silence. The rising stars struggle to breathe in The first to go out in the dark is the slum boy knowing no one is waiting, A monster...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 31, 2018 | 2018 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Witch Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford A witch was bottled, and stoppered with wax in this ribbed and silvered scent-bottle. The hand-written ticket does not explain how she was captured, but says an old lady warned: if you let her out there’ll be a...
