Today’s choice
Previous poems
Elijah MacBean
My Name is My Name
Ami never let anyone call my sister Sam –
it always had to be Samina.
She said she’d rather be waterboarded
than let her daughter be whitewashed
by whites too conservative to spare
the extra syllables.
Ami never let anyone call me Eli –
it always had to be Elijah.
She said she loved bursting bubbles
of Baby Boomers who thought
Elijah was reserved for blonde-haired boys
with crosses around their necks.
Ami never let anyone misspell our surname –
it always had to be MacBean.
She said the A tethered me,
to my father’s Scottish side,
steady between his body beneath,
and his spirit above.
Elijah MacBean is a mixed-race British Kashmiri-Scottish writer from Accrington, Lancashire.
Gareth Writer-Davies
it’s a special kind of empty
the footed earth, saluting the sky
Sam Szanto
It beckons from between plasters and hand cream,
the box bright-white, the lettering green.
Tamara Evans
Travel West. Submerge yourself
in the M4’s homeward drift.
Rushika Wick
slid in bass-drop dams up
pierced ears, furred
with youth, his vest drinks sweat,
Helen Smith
lunchtime, in the maths department
arranging pencils by colour
two friends, carefully sorting
into clear plastic tubs
Carolyn Oulton
Unexpected as burned stone,
what am I supposed
to do with this memory?
José Buera
Aircon crickets through the night
outside my parents’ bedroom
since brother and I are not allowed AC
given the dangers of cold air to children.
Abraham Aondoana
We did not inherit land,
only remnants of fields they burned—
black fields scorched before we understood
Lorna Rose Gill
Maybe I remember getting brunch;
or the time the dog ate my croissant;