Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ian Seed
Draenog
What was the Welsh for ‘hedgehog’? That was what he wanted to know. It was a word he could only remember in his sleep when he dreamt of himself as a small boy, barefoot, back in 1966. The sun was shining. He was wandering across fields and streams, and then what seemed like forever along a winding lane. It was only when he found a hedgehog, dead, stuck to the tarmac with its own flesh, that he realised he had no idea how to find his way back to the campsite where his mum would be making tea. A car swept by. Black bits cut into the soles of his feet.
Ian Seed’s most recent publications include Forgetfulness (Shearsman, 2026), My Outsize Hank Williams Cowboy Hat, with artwork by Lupo Sol (Sacred Parasite, 2025), and The Dice Cup, from the French of Max Jacob (Wakefield, 2023). Find him at www.ianseed.co.uk
Ruth Lexton
The new year slouches forward, unlovable,
barely acknowledged but for tired, gritty eyes
and a muffled scream into the kitchen towel.
Claire Booker
Never has there been so much interest
in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth
like the little man in a weather clock.
Jacob Mckibbin
my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station
Janet Hatherley
He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen.
Syed Anas S
We are the ones
who see big crackers
burst every day—
Dharmavadana
She barely glances at you when you chink
your spare coins in her upturned cap, but still
spreads a spell among the pavement footfalls,
Tim Dwyer
Shedding Annamakerrig It begins high up the chestnut tree with leaves on the twigs on the tips of branches where sap has slowed. Turning amber carried by the breeze they touch the earth, rest on the grass where autumn begins Tim...
Gopal Lahiri
From this far-side apartment
you watch jarul leaves darkening with the seasons
Adam Kelly
Determined, you smash against the window
I have to admire you in your striped suit