Sometimes you just need to make a stand and in many ways that is what we are seeing from our shortlisted poets for May’s Pick of the Month. Tristan Moss’s hero in ‘Origins’ is all about [holding] the origin of all things/above her wish to have them…’ Clementine E. Burnley‘s ‘Because’ demands that we take notice of ‘… a woman standing barefoot at the airport,/in pajamas and handcuffs’ and so much more.
‘Cerebellum (a secular prayer to the vacuum)’ by Matt Nicholson, is lighter in tone but no less importunate – ‘teach me to be emancipated,/to be satisfied…’ Avril Joy‘s ‘Aztec Love Song for Uprooted Flowers’ is dedicated to women in prison ‘buds unopened, roses full-blown/discarded, trampled on…’ while Harriet Jae, in her ‘Bid for Freedom’ seeks to ‘outleap these bounds in outlaw song.’ Perhaps only Mhairi Owens in her dark and haunting ‘Hippocampus’ bows to the inevitable: ‘But that’s something that lives where light doesn’t./It appears in the deceptive netting/of its own flesh…’ Or does she?
Whatever your choice – and all can be found below or by clicking on ‘Vote for your May 2019 Pick of the Month′ in the Categories list to your right on the screen – these works will not leave you.
Voting has now closed. The winner will be announced on Thursday 27th June at 4pm BST.
The winner each month will be sent a £10 book giftcard or, if preferred, a donation of the same amount will be made to a chosen charity. In the event of the winner being from outside the UK mainland, we will make every effort to provide a reasonable alternative. All shortlisted poetry Picks, provided they remain unpublished and meet other eligibility criteria, will be considered as IS&T submissions for the annual Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. (‘Frequency Violet’ by Kate Edwards was a Pick of the Month for November 2017 and was Highly Commended by the 2018 judges. It features in The Forward Book of Poetry 2019.)