by Helen Ivory | Apr 2, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Mother She cut letters out of me, which quietly and unnoticed danced red poems. In the autumn wind, they fell at her feet and rustled decay. Since then, my name wears holes. I counted myself off on five fingers and planted my remains in the...
by Kate Birch | Apr 1, 2025 | Featured, Special Word & Image
Tricks , Etc. Poisson D’Avril Helen Ivory is poet and visual artist. She edits IS&T and teaches for Arvon. Her sixth Bloodaxe collection Constructing a Witch (2024) was a PBS Winter Recommendation. She won a Cholmondeley Award...
by IB | Mar 31, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Photo of a man lighting up in the snow In the wrong shoes, no gloves, his dark coat and hat are greyed with snow. He is in white-out, stopped in his tracks, dying for the comfort of a fag. He makes a chalice around the flame, hands becoming shield so he can...
by IB | Mar 30, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Annette’s Ode Slithering through incisor-gap, English leapt from your lips to mine, a string between you & me, ringed with hot coals we slide back & forth in the air like abacus beads. Coals that warm & warn: lighting the way as best...
by IB | Mar 30, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
How It Ends There is an album of all the men your mother have loved. It sits every night in the deep silence of the basement. Tonight, your mother burns the album, she pours fire into her longing. Every memory carries a flame, every man with his own ash....
by IB | Mar 29, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Great Depression If they ask where I am, tell them: I am wintering. I have secreted small acorns of sadness in crevices of gnarled limbs and shall be savouring their bitternesses on the back of my tongue until the days lengthen. But mainly, I’ll be...