I love it. It so accurately demonstrates the painfulness of those early days when your language competency is so limited that your personality feels suppressed!
A spare, straightforward poem utilising what editing intern Sabine Wilson-Patrick called a ‘blunting of language’, language used to such effect. Voters empathised with the struggle of learning a new language, some could link the poem to learning Italian in particular while others saw its wider relevance to the ‘layers of implication’ in language and its ‘ambiguity of communication’. It is for these reasons and more that ‘Beginner’s Italian’ by James Mason is the IS&T Pick of the Month for July 2026.
James Mason lives in Worcestershire, UK. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the Open University. He has asked that his £25 ‘prize’ be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Beginner’s Italian
In Italian I have no inner life.
With no past or future tense
My needs are immediate.
I have hunger. I eat.
I have thirst. I drink.
I have the name for wine not peas.
The heat is good. I want.
Yes, I sleep well, thank you.
But I pass a dreamless night.
I am appetite. A thing of flesh.
More, it says. Again.
I do not know how to say enough.
Other voters comments included:
The poem beautifully captures the frustration of learning a new language: how the absence of the right words can restrict not only what we say, but how fully we can express ourselves and connect with others. It conveys the strange experience of having thoughts and feelings that are richer and more complex than the language available to express them.
It turns beginners Italian into a synonym for the importance of language in existence and life.
It really grasps the difficulty of opting for the correct auxiliary verb, something not usual for native English speakers, and always a conundrum when starting to learn Italian. I have hunger or I am hunger? I have 33 years old? You have hot? etc. This short verse evokes those constant dilemmas which come up in everyday speech.
He pictured the struggles when learning a new language with perfection!
I can identify with the feelings remembering when I started learning Italian
It’s exactly how we all feel learning a new language and it made me smile
Very amusing and simple
I recognise feeling unsophisticated when my language skills are lacking.
It really grasps the difficulty of opting for the correct auxiliary verb, something not usual for native English speakers, and always a conundrum when starting to learn Italian. I have hunger or I am hunger? I have 33 years old? You have hot? etc. This short verse evokes those constant dilemmas which come up in everyday speech.
Thought he captured the passion of the Italians and the hedonist style of life perfectly
I thought it was very clever, written with great facility, and it struck a chord!
It uses simple language to illustrate both learning a language and also how that translates to greed as an immediate and present feeling
Using the minimal of words James conveys a rich and complex feeling
I like the sense of reduction and the double meaning of enough at the end
I love the slightly off kilter rhythm . Very evocative. I liked it because it is a simple, striking poem about living only in the present and following basic needs. The rhythm and the repetition give it a raw, almost animal-like quality.
As a language learner myself this poem struck a cord with me and took me back to a time of discovery and a feeling of accomplishment that you can only experience when learning a new language.
As a non native speaker who has learned English, I see myself in James’ poem!
Beautifully captures the frustration of trying to express yourself in a language you’re not fluent in
It’s beautifully compressed and doesn’t use a single unnecessary word. Mason’s poem interested me from the title and kept me engaged until then end of the poem.
An unconventional look at the ambiguity of communication
It took me a moment to realise the lack of knowledge of Italian words and tenses was what was driving the alternative worldview
As an Italian, I like how the poem captures the Italian way of satisfying primary needs
Conveys the importance of words to shaping our thoughts and giving voice to our rich inner world.
The poem allows the reader space to reflect on the language & its layers of implication.
Lovely poem. I like the way it captures both the language learning itself and the way that what we say says something about what we are. Bravo!
Captures the quirks and essence of having basic grasp of a language but is also an insight into simple v complex life choices
Perfectly encapsulates the relationship between thought and language. Can you really think beyond the ideas you have the language to express?
I enjoyed the cadence of it and the playful interpretation of tense.
Editing intern Sabine Wilson-Patrick wrote on shortlisting: ‘Beginner’s Italian’ by James Mason is a poem that captures an experience I feel many people can share in. It is a show of skill when a poem, an artform so focused on language, can utilise a blunting of language for such a strong effect. There are so many lines in this poem I think are spot on: I have hunger. I eat./ I have thirst. I drink./ I have the name for wine not peas.
THE REST OF THE JULY 2026 PICK OF THE MONTH SHORTLIST
Glory of the Blacker Berry
Today. Let us forget the blunt-edged sorrows.
Remember the black joys, my darker brother—
the high laughter of women, the bright, unbothered
stride of boys. We have died more times than the days
have names, yet here is the breath. The living.
Don’t you want it all? To inhabit the skin to the fullest?
The chain days have passed, and the cotton days,
the caged days, the muted-color days. Let them go.
What matters now is the feast of this survival.
The glory of our own light, black light.
Look at us: the deeper the root, the sweeter the juice.
Glory of the blacker berry, split wide open to the sun.
Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri is a Ghanaian poet whose work has appeared/forthcoming in Poetry Wales, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review and North American Review. Winner of the 2025 African Writers Award and runner-up for the 2026 Cambridge Poetry Prize. Instagram @poetraniel
*
Misdiagnosis
There’s something wrong with my head
it’s too tight, it’s a round black shape
on the pavement where the grand piano fell
six storeys and flattened my skull
There’s something wrong with the sky
it’s the colour of a bruise and smells
of burnt toast. Do you hear that noise?
Someone’s shredding the blue
There’s something wrong with my mouth
everything tastes of brine
or rubbery seaweed and when I swallow
pebbles catch in my throat
There’s something wrong with the clock
that stuck on the 16th of April,
five forty-five, when the telephone rang
and the cuckoo choked
There’s something wrong with my legs
because they want to sit down
all the time but when they do
they want to run away
There’s something wrong with the game
of doctors and nurses. Sitting in a circle
to pass the parcel. The muzak cuts
as they give me – BOOM!
There’s something wrong with my heart
so the surgeon opens me up. They snip
my hairspring and mislay the ticks:
close with a dropped stitch.
There’s something wrong with the message
the punctuation stutters and the name
is smudged. Her name must be wrong.
Wouldn’t that explain everything?
Siobhan Logan has published two books of poetry & non-fiction with Original Plus Press and two with Space Cat Press. She has also lectured in Creative Writing at De Montfort University, UK. spacecatpress.co.uk
*
Out
a found poem from a Google search ‘define out’
no longer detained in prison
in the middle of nowhere
no longer involved in a competition
not at home or one’s place of work
away from the goal the finishing line the designated playing area
to sea
to be made public
to be made available
aloud
in existence
(of a stain or mark) removed
(of a flower) in bloom
no longer burning
to be finished
James McDermott’s collections published by Nine Arches Press include Father Myself and Wild Life. James’s poems have been published in Poetry Wales, Magma, The North, Butcher’s Dog and Interpreter’s House.
*
The D-Road
We’ve come this way before and will again.
On good days, we sing along to the radio,
turned up to make the silence rattle.
The packet sits in my lap until she asks.
It’s a two-handed operation to fill
the long vee, balance the filter.
I lift the paper to my mouth,
moisten the edge. Practice makes perfect!
This is the closest I shall ever come
to the rich sweetness of tobacco.
I watch her smoke it down to the filter,
flick it deftly out of the window.
It never lasts long. There is always
snow on the dashboard. I make another,
thinking of the year she tried to quit.
All those razor edges. I hand over
the next roll-up. I admire the flower, but – oh,
the mess we make of precious things.
Lauren K. Nixon is an indie author and poet, author of numerous short stories and several novels, along with four volumes of poetry (Wild Daughter, Marry Your Chameleon, umbel., Sing Madrigals, Old Gods and Hedgerows) and several plays. laurenknixon.com
*
The Bird
The bird
crept up on him, threw its voice into an empty tree,
he started to notice the aliveness of things,
wondered how
he had slept through his adult life
without ever having inhabited a bush.
The bird
followed him into a glade, revealed
certain important objects, a surging eyeball,
fully encased, a weapons-grade flask, army slacks
ideal for losing himself in,
he was rabid for the hunt.
The bird
was pleased with his progress, sent dispatches to other birds
on how he filled the air
with a librarian’s conceit,
recorded everything
in notebooks and photographs, a wayward inheritance.
To his family
it was nothing more than the latest hobby,
but quietly, assuredly, on those hot and cold days,
he learnt
how to hold the enemy in his crosshairs
and choose mercy.
Rich Yates is working on his first collection of poetry. His poems have so far appeared in Vipers Tongue magazine. He is a proud Essex boy, works in conservation where he can enjoy the quiet beauty of the saltmarsh, and is a keen musician.