There’s an energy and a restlessness that pervades the poems in our shortlist for the IS&T Pick of the Month for July! In fact, in Maxine Rose Munro‘s ‘He grows’, the narrator gives birth to a ‘Restless’ that cannot be held down, while William Stephenson refuses to hold back the ‘rising buzz’ in his ‘On the Origin of Electrofunk by Natural Selection’ and Jack Little reveals a sleeping beast in ‘The Metro after 1AM’. A tumultuous teenage past – ‘the addictive thrill of cheating/the drumming heartbeat’ – infuses Golnoosh Nour‘s ‘Blood Days’ and we feel an extreme tension, a ‘Struggling to breathe’, in ‘Seats’ by Dipo Baruwa-Etti. Finally, Chrissy Banks is on the edge of something both wounding and exhilarating with ‘If you don’t come back’.
All six works have been chosen by Helen or Kate or received the most attention on social media. They can be found below or by clicking on ‘Vote for your July 2019 Pick of the Month′ in the Categories list to your right on the screen.
Voting is now closed. July’s ‘Pick’ will be announced at 4pm (BST) on Tuesday 20th August.
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 All shortlisted poetry Picks, provided they remain unpublished and meet other eligibility criteria, will be considered as IS&T submissions for the annual Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.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.)