Today’s choice
Previous poems
Julia Webb
Essay on Craft
Because a woman woke up
and her head had become a flower.
Because the images were placed
in a way that pleased the eye.
Because if she’s not careful
the scalpel can cut.
Because once a woman is glued down
it’s difficult for her to become unstuck.
Because when a woman steps off the page
a prince might see an opening.
Julia Webb is a a neurodivergent writer and artist from a working class background. She has three collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016) Threat (2019) and The Telling (2022). She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse – a journal for new writers.
Amirah Al Wassif
The God I know works as a baker in a local shop.
From time to time, I see him feeding the kittens bread crumbs soaked in milk.
Paul Stephenson
Rhubarb after Norman MacCaig And another thing: stop looking like embarrassed celery. It doesn’t suit. How can you stand there, glittery in pink, some of you rigid, some all over the shop? Deep down you’re marooned, a sour forest spilling out beneath a harmful canopy....
Holly Winter-Hughes
You stand behind me / catch my eye / take the snatch of silver
Laura McKee
after the accident the plaster
held her still
Melanie Branton
At boarding school, I had no idea what to do
with myself. Most of the time,
I hid myself in a paper bag . . .
Lucy Calder
I arrange my books in order of height,
on a bank of cow parsley,
amid the random oscillations
of a cool breeze
Tanya Joseph
I know others blossom
but I vomit ectoplasm,
and squaring the corners of my bed,
the nurse reminds me I’m not dying.
Lucy Heuschen
It is known: a woman like that
brings evil on board.
Carolyn Oulton
Heat on the window
baking my face like a biscuit.
I move some hair, look over
at moss and narcissi, in a pot –