Today’s choice
Previous poems
Clara-Læïla Laudette
The purpose
I’m six days late and this is known
as a delinquent period.
We’re amused by this
if nothing else.
The first thing you do
after I say pregnancy out loud
is sit on the loo and search
sensory deprivation tank London.
I see you typing as I brush my teeth.
You find one in Angel
three sessions for £90
which seems like a good deal;
tell me about the tonne of salt
guaranteeing buoyancy
the music they play at first
the lid they shut over you
then silence
and I am very touched
by the slim pellucid fear
folding and unfolding
in the space behind your neck.
I spit, say I’ll come too
and you say that would
defeat the purpose
Clara-Læïla Laudette is a writer, facilitator and journalist. She won Magma’s Judge’s Prize, placed third in the Poetry London Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry Prize, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and longlisted for the National Poetry Competition. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Poetry Review, Propel, Beloit Poetry Journal, fourteen poems and Wet Grain, among others.
Elizabeth Worthen
This is how (I like to think) it begins:
night-time, August, the Devon cottage, where
the darkness is so complete . . .
Elly Katz
When naked with myself, I feel where a right elbow isn’t, then is. I let my left palm guide me through the exhibition of my body.
Laurence Morris
The night of his arrest I climbed a hill
to find a deep cave in which to hide
Sarp Sozdinler
As a kid, Nehisi used to sleep in a treehouse. He could curl right into it from his bedroom window. He would have a hard time falling asleep every time his parents got loud or physical.
Three poems on Counting for National Poetry Day: Max Wallis, Julie Anne Jenson, Brian Kelly
I don’t wear them
or have any
but you gave me a pair
of seven-inch goth platform heels.
Fizza Abbas
They say change is a constant,
but this constant became a coefficient
always racing to catch me
Scott Elder
What will you do in winter dear when drifts
cover your fingers and shoes
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