Today’s choice
Previous poems
Antony Dunn
Plainsong
Have you heard the one about
how I’m hoping to bow out –
playing guitar for the Cure
on a wide stage – the riff pure
as wind-bells in the twilight,
the crowd stretching beyond sight
into the dark and the rain –
smiling, not ageing, not in pain,
lost in the longing song, doubt
done with, drowning myself out?
Antony Dunn has published four collections of poems most recently, Bugs (Carcanet OxfordPoets) and Take This One to Bed (Valley Press). Winner of the Newdigate Prize and an Eric Gregory Award, he edited and introduced Ex Libris, a posthumous collection of poems by David Hughes (Valley Press). Antony is a regular tutor for The Poetry School and has taught many times for Arvon. He has worked on a number of translation projects with poets from Holland, Hungary, Israel and China. He has been Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival, the University of York and the People Powered Press. Until 2018 he was Artistic Director of the Bridlington Poetry Festival. Antony lives in Leeds. Website: antonydunn.org
Hannah Linden
Formed into darkness
an octopus squeezes around
the spaces of a shipwreck.
Kweku Abimbola
My father walks backwards
better than most walk forward—
so whenever he sewed his steps into the living
room carpet, I rushed to mirror my moon-
walking, until he froze,
froze like he’d been caught
by the beat.
Paul Bavister
We found our eyes first,
as they swirled through fragments
of black jumper, dark pine trees
and an orange sunset sky
Anne Donnellan
I prayed for resurrection
that the sun in the sky
might dance Easter morning.
Philip Gross
Enough of scorch, scald, sore- and rawness.
Sometimes flesh longs for eclipse.
Nick Allen
she told me about the still hours
spent at the coast watching the east
Phil Vernon
Because we were four
and I only had strength to carry one
and knew no other way
I carried the one who called out loudest;
threatened us most.
Patrick Deeley
As you rummage of a morning
among dust-furred personal effects
jumbled in an old
wooden suitcase under a bed . . .
Terry Jones
The Lake District Tourist Board
has had no input into what
you are now reading, but I so
miss Cumbria in Holy Week