Today’s choice
Previous poems
Sally Jenkins
The Biology Department
Funny how Year 8 is doing bones
now, of all the weeks. In the prep room
we strip flesh off chicken wings,
steep the bones in acid til they bend
like rubber, and the girls shriek.
Cardboard femur and tibia
jointed with split pins swing,
and I sing while I work: the toe bone
connected to the foot bone,
now hear the word of the Lord.
I carry the skeleton in my arms
from Art back home to Science.
We sway like Fred and Ginger,
my fingers falling between its ribs
makes me weep.
I carried your crushed weight home
Mum, in a paper bag ribboned like a gift.
Tucked you under my bed to sleep.
Sally Jenkins is currently studying for the MA in Poetry Writing at The Poetry School, London. This is her first publication.
Simon Maddrell
Four years in Knockaloe was a living
inspiration for inventor Joseph Pilates.
Tom Kelly
At thirteen I am competing with James Joyce,
encouraging pain, at the very least discomfort.
Nick McGaughey
And here you are slid from the rain
under my door, “s” -ing along the cool
checks in the hallway.
Poetry from UEA MA Scholars 2024/2025: Grace Phillips and On Zi Rui
You bought peppermint and bubbles,
monologued in the corner.
You barely looked at me twice.
– Grace Phillips
I looked at the neon lights
Gazing, I asked myself :
“What am I sourcing for now that I am without you ?”
– On Zi Rui
Jade Prince
What is here for us but these walls and the
pearls of sweet yearning behind them
Esha Volvoikar
The earth cracks and we are left
with the same shared moon.
She peers through my lattice window
and hides behind your city’s smoke.
Violeta Zlatareva
The neighbor is a devout woman.
She bakes bread and lights candles
Robin Vaughan-Williams
I’ve got all this money lying around.
Have you got anything you can do with it?
Rizwan Akhtar
What fell between an abrupt shower
and a sky’s attitude was your memory.