Frank Phelan

      Renegade Voices I am most visceral when being disarmed by a song, a lyric written and sung… in the broad New Yawk vowels of Dean Friedman. The scowl of Dylan. The scat and growl of George Ivan. Matthew Devereux’s demonic staccato. Pierce...

Katherine Duffy

      Wake (Leaving Amorgos, Greece) The ferry pushes the sea, forces a long, white reply that speaks of where we’ve been – a hulk of rock, a prison in the time of the Colonels, now a place of painted chairs, fairy lights. I lean over, try to read...

Audrey Cotterell

      A November anniversary In a corner chapel of the abbey I lit a small candle, and sent the flame as a message only half composed to somewhere I hardly believed in. Room is restricted on the ferry: six cars, a few pedestrians and dogs, all of us...

 Dylan Foster

      Sabbatical there’s not much you can do when the planets are telling you to stop and gravity, who only wants the best from us, says get down to the ground, that you are wanted, and so you obey, become as asphalt or fertiliser. you press...

Jeff Skinner

      Hamlet in the Scanner Can’t hear yourself think only the bass line of a heart thumping. Your head’s clamped. You can’t move. A panic button slicks a palm, a soft wet plum. You could be bounded in a nutshell and count yourself a king of infinite...