two lovers grew so close they became
too fluently familiar
having lost what makes fire fire.
And One Unlucky Starling
It would climb from its dirt-tank and whip
after dad’s thrown oven chips –
and when it was full it would rest in the glare
of the TV like a drainpipe choked with moss
and one unlucky starling. Rare
was the sight of mum stroking it
as one of her own stockinged legs,
more often dad laid it over himself
as one of her stockinged legs –
still, it would nuzzle no one save me
and follow me to bed, my one-limbed teddy
they’d later call my tape measure
comparing its hungry length to mine
as into sleep I glided like a chip across the room.
A Squirrel
smears herself with snakeskin,
wears the perfume of its scales –
near hungry mouths she’s invisible
as if she were another venomous tail.
Behind a tree somebody hid
but no one is exactly sure
if this is hiding or imitating
the yew, unmoving, lichen-furred.
And when you lie beneath his skin
what are you thinking, if you think at all?
Is it that you’re half of him –
at one and indivisible?
or covering your breasts and thighs –
his body being the warmest hide?
Tended
A hot afternoon and tiredness has him
turning to the garden for fresh air
where he spills coffee and goes to swear – and swears
because she is, of course, in bed
and not about to come downstairs.
Beyond the oak, in full sun the fields
of maize grow rainbows as the tractors spray.
Beneath her curtained window, in their plot,
tended by his hands these days,
a bee is abandoning itself on his abandoned spade.
From the corner of his eye, he sees her
raise her claw as if to wave.
How long now? He blows away the steam and sips.
The struggling buzz of the bedside bell.
It no longer seems like myth; that those
who devote their lives to one another
like bee to blossom, blossom fruit,
will take their leave in the same hour.
I’m doing you an injustice
It’s like I’ve invited you to a party
of people I know but you don’t –
I see you fitting into the erratic
spaces between people talking
till I only see parts of you
like the nude beneath the willow
she doesn’t look quite herself
dappled by the shadowings
from what is given light first.
The Crickets
With this breeze
the springing crickets explore
an astronaut’s grasp of gravity. Flung
like the second half of a metaphor
I look back and there I am
and here, too
differently. Uncrossable
space between myselves.
A crowd
of moonwalkers tittering
and not one cricket
on the breeze.
Seahorse
Isn’t it shocking how he speaks for her?
His voice across the restaurant –
she’ll have the cod artichoke bake.
A giggle of bubbles comes from behind them:
a fish tank curtained with seagrass
where a seahorse is tying itself
to one of these slim, tweedy forms
like a hand shaping itself inside another’s
the way my hand tucks into his
like a difference pretending it’s not.
Nuptials
One day, downhill from the farmer’s field,
I, a frog, married a drain,
married its cool and its damp,
web-wed its steely gills,
its shaggy walls and mind of flies:
to which the drain gave consent
silently adding its nuptials.
So overgrown with green
and happy clamminess,
on the eve of our first year
a fifth foot bulbed from my skin
with something of the pressure and shape
of a cork being eased
from a bottle of champagne.
All night, my croak in the air
was the closest I could get to your
– remind me, what do you call them –
fireworks or flares?
Kind
The owl anthropomorphises
himself upon the plinth,
being steeped
in his keeper’s routine –
if we put a female in with him
he’d still make love with the hats on our heads –
he’s been here twice as long as I’ve been
captivated by you,
like him I don’t think of myself
as possessed
until one night, loosed to the world,
I find myself expecting
everyone to be your kind
of kindness.
A Note
A note on the petal
from the last nectar-robber –
I was here and drained the lot.
Others near and read
and reel sharply back
into the sky.
No matter, what he wrote
wears off – one flower
clothed in yellow claws
needs one full turn of Earth,
another dressed in blue
just minutes to re-self.
CONTRIBUTORS
Luke Allan is a poet and publisher. He is director of the small press Sine Wave Peak and managing editor of Carcanet Press. He co-edits the poetry journals Pain, Butcher’s Dog, Quait, and PN Review. He received a Northern Promise Award for poetry in 2011. A pamphlet, Minimum Soft Exchange, was published by MIEL in 2016. He lives with his wife on a hill in West Yorkshire.
Zohar Atkins was born in Bearsville, New York, in 1988, and grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. He holds an A.B. in Classics and Jewish Studies and an A.M. in History from Brown University, and a DPhil in Theology from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. A rabbinic student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and a Fellow at the David Hartman Center. His poem, ‘Without Without Title’ won the Oxonian Review Prize. His debut collection is forthcoming with Carcanet in 2019.
Rowland Bagnall was born in Oxfordshire in 1992. He studied English at St John’s College, Oxford, and completed an MPhil in American Literature at the University of Cambridge. His poetry has previously appeared in various magazines, including Poetry London, The Quietus, and PN Review. He currently lives in Oxford. His first collection is forthcoming from Carcanet in 2019.
Sumita Chakraborty hails from Boston, Massachusetts and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She holds a doctorate in English with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University. Poetry editor of AGNI and art editor of At Length, her articles, essays and poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Cultural Critique, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2017 the Poetry Foundation awarded her a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship.
Mary Jean Chan is a poet from Hong Kong. Her poems have appeared in The 2018 Forward Book of Poetry, The Poetry Review, PN Review, The London Magazine, Oxford Poetry, Poetry London and Ambit. She won the 2017 Poetry Society Members’ Competition, the 2017 Poetry and Psychoanalysis Competition and the 2016 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition (ESL). A poem of Chan’s was shortlisted for the 2017 Forwa
rd Prize for Best Single Poem. As a PhD candidate and Research Associate at Royal Holloway, University of London, she won the 2017 PSA/Journal of Postcolonial Writing Postgraduate Essay Prize. She is a Co-Editor at Oxford Poetry. Her debut collection is forthcoming from Faber & Faber in 2019.
Helen Charman was born in 1993. She is writing a PhD thesis on maternity, sacrifice, and political economy in nineteenth-century fiction, and teaches undergraduates at the University of Cambridge and primary school children in Hackney, where she currently lives. Her critical writing can be found introducing the short stories of Mary Butts for the ANON series (Oxford: Hurst Street Press, 2017), in The Cambridge Humanities Review, The King’s Review and elsewhere. She was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize in 2017, and her first pamphlet of poems is forthcoming from Offord Road Books in 2018.
Rebecca Cullen studied English and Drama in Wales and Sheffield before working in Further Education and the Civil Service. She received a Distinction for an MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University in 2013. She is currently an NTU doctoral scholar, researching the relationship between poetry and time, funded by Midlands3Cities DTP and the AHRC. Her poems have appeared in journals such as PN Review, The North and New Walk, and she regularly leads poetry workshops across the community. Rebecca is also the host at Totally Wired early evening poetry.
Ned Denny was born in London in 1975 and has worked as a postman, art critic, book reviewer, music journalist and gardener. His poems and ‘masks’ have appeared in publications including PN Review, Poetry Review, The White Review, Oxford Poetry, The TLS and Modern Poetry in Translation. His first collection, Unearthly Toys, was published by Carcanet in 2018.
Neil Fleming is a poet, playwright, screenwriter, translator, software writer, and occasional energy markets consultant. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the University of Vienna. A former journalist, he has lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the UK, covering wars, famines, elephants, politics, OPEC and the oil industry. In 2002 he co-founded the theatre company Hydrocracker. Three of his plays – Musik, The Consultant, and Wild Justice – have been produced in London, Plymouth and Brighton. He won the 2005 Kent and Sussex Poetry competition. He lives in Suffolk and is married with three grown-up daughters.
Isabel Galleymore is a lecturer at the University of Birmingham. Her debut pamphlet, Dazzle Ship, was published in 2014 by Worple Press. Her work has featured in Poetry, Poetry London and Poetry Review, among other magazines. In 2016, she was Poet in Residence at the Tambopata Research Centre in the Amazon rainforest. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2017.
Katherine Horrex was born in Liverpool and grew up in Hull, where she studied, before moving to Manchester. Her poems have been published in the The TLS, Morning Star, PN Review, Poetry London, Poetry Salzburg Review and The Poetry Business Introduction X; they are forthcoming in Some Cannot Be Caught: The Emma Press Book of Beasts. She holds an MA from Manchester University’s Centre for New Writing.
Lisa Kelly is half deaf and half Danish. She is the Chair of Magma Poetry and co-edited issue 63, The Conversation Issue; and issue 69, The Deaf Issue. She is a regular host of poetry evenings at the Torriano Meeting House, London and has an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Lancaster University. Her pamphlet Bloodhound is published by Hearing Eye. She is currently a freelance journalist, and has worked as an actress, life model, Consumer Champion, waitress, sales assistant and envelope stuffer. Her pamphlet Philip Levine’s Good Ear is forthcoming from Stonewood Press in 2018.
Born in Singapore, Theophilus Kwek has published four volumes of poetry – most recently The First Five Storms, which won the New Poets’ Prize in 2016. He has also won the Berfrois Poetry Prize and the Jane Martin Prize, and was placed Second in the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation. His poems, translations and essays have appeared in The Guardian, The North, The London Magazine, Cha, The Irish Examiner, and The Philosophical Salon. He previously served as President of the Oxford University Poetry Society, and is now Co-Editor of Oxford Poetry as well as Editor-at-Large for Singapore at Asymptote.
Andrew Latimer is an editor, publisher and writer. He is editorial director at Little Island Press and founding editor of Egress.
Toby Litt was born in 1968 and grew up in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. He is the author of ten novels, including deadkidsongs, Ghost Story and Notes for a Young Gentleman, and four short story collections. His most recent book is Wrestliana, a memoir about his great-great-great grandfather, William Litt – a champion wrestler, poet, smuggler and exile. He lectures in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London.
James Leo McAskill was born in Manchester and studied in Glasgow. He is an editor at Little Island Press. He lives in Lisbon.
Rachel Mann is an Anglican parish priest and honorary canon of Manchester Cathedral. She is the author of four books including a bestselling theological memoir of growing up trans, Dazzling Darkness. Formerly Poet in Residence at Manchester Cathedral, her poems have been published in PN Review, The North, Magma, and other places. Her current book is Fierce Imaginings: The Great War, Ritual, Memory & God (DLT, 2017).
Jamie Osborn founded Cambridge Student PEN and for two years was poetry editor at The Missing Slate. His translations of Iraqi refugee poems have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation and Botch, and his own poems in Blackbox Manifold, New Welsh Review, Lighthouse, BODY and elsewhere. He has also published translations from the German of Jan Wagner. He lives in Brussels.
Andrew Wynn Owen is a Fellow by Examination at All Souls College, Oxford. He received the university’s Newdigate Prize in 2014 and an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2015. With the Emma Press, he has published pamphlets including a narrative poem, lyrics, and a collaboration (with John Fuller).
Phoebe Power received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2012 and a Northern Writers’ Award in 2014. A live version of her pamphlet, Harp Duet (Eyewear, 2016) was recently performed with electronic music, and her current project, Christl, is a collaboration between four artists in poetry, visual art and sound. Her first collection, Shrines of Upper Austria, was published by Carcanet in 2018. She lives in York.
Michael Schmidt is a founder of Carcanet Press and its Managing and Editorial Director. He is General Editor of the magazine PN Review and has been involved in editing all seven New Poetries.
Laura Scott grew up in London but now lives in Norwich. Her poems have appeared in various magazines including PN Review and Poetry Review. She won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2015 and the Michael Marks Prize for her pamphlet What I Saw. She was commended in the 2017 National Poetry Competition.
Vala Thorodds is an Iceland-born poet, publisher, editor, translator, and literary curator. She is the founding director of Partus, an independent literary press based in Reykjavík and Manchester. Her poetry has recently been published in print and online in The White Review, Poetry Wales, Gutter, Ambit, Magma and Hotel. She has published one chapbook in Icelandic, What Once Was Forest (2015), and her nonfiction articles have appeared on or in Dazed, Cereal, Iceland Review, and The Reykjavík Grapevine. Her translations of the icelandic poet Kristín Ómarsdóttir are forthcoming from Carcanet in 2018.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Luke Allan: ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’ and ‘Pennyweight’ appeared in Oxford Poetry. ‘A Note on Walking to Elgol’ and ‘The grace of a curve…’ in Magma. ‘Advice of the Assistant in a Card Shop…’ and ‘Alexandrine’ in The Rialto. ‘The true path is…’ in Quait. ‘Love Poem’ in Lighthouse. ‘The grace of a curve…’ borrows words from Gaston Bachelard and ‘The Road Not Taken’ from Robert Frost.
Zohar Atkins: ‘System Baby’ appeared in TYPO. ‘Without Without Title’ in the Oxonian Review. ‘Song of Myself (Apocryphal)’, ‘Fake Judaism’, ‘Déjà Vu’ and ‘The Binding of Isaac’ in PN Review.
Sumita Chakraborty: ‘Dear, beloved’ appeared in Poetry.
Mary Jean Chan: poems appeared
in PN Review, The London Magazine, The Rialto, English: Journal of the English Association and Poetry News (The Poetry Society).
Helen Charman: ‘Angiogram’, ‘The Roses of Heliogabalus’ and ‘Thin girls’ appeared online in Hotel. ‘Tampon panic attack’ in Blackbox Manifold. ‘Type F (captive / voluntary)’ and ‘Type C (fiscal)’ in Datableed, ‘Agony in the Garden’ on the MINERVA platform.
Ned Denny: ‘Drones’ appeared in The White Review.
Isabel Galleymore: ‘The Ash’ and ‘Seahorse’ appeared in Poetry. ‘A False Limpet’ in Stand. ‘A Note’ in Triptychs (Guillemot Press). ‘Together’ and ‘I’m Doing You an Injustice’ in Dazzle Ship.
Katherine Horrex: ‘Four Muses’, Grey Natural Light’ and ‘Goat Fell’ appeared in PN Review. ‘Polycystic’ in Introduction X: The Poetry Business Book of New Poets. ‘Lapwings in Fallowfield’ and ‘Brexit’ in Manchester Review.
Lisa Kelly: ‘Apple Quartet’ appeared in PN Review. ‘Trailing Spouse’ and ‘A Map Towards Fluency’ in Ambit. ‘Out of Order’ won Lancaster University’s open competition on Reading (MA Category), ‘A Desultory Day’ in The Rialto. ‘Anonymous’ in Prole. ‘A Chorus of Jacks in 13 Texts’ and ‘Cuddles are Drying up Like the Sun in a Data Lake’ in Tears in the Fence. ‘The Dogs of Pénestin’ was longlisted for the 2016 National Poetry Competition.
Theophilus Kwek: poems appeared in The Adroit Journal, Asia Literary Review, Berfrois, Eastlit, Irish Literary Review, The London Magazine, The Missing Slate, PN Review and Wildness. ‘Camerata’ was a runner-up in the Fish Poetry Prize 2016, and appeared in the prize anthology of that year. ‘Occurrence’ appeared in Flight, an anthology in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. ‘24.6.2016’, ‘Occurrence’, ‘Requiem’ and ‘Road Cutting at Glanmire’ appeared in The First Five Storms (smith / doorstop, 2017).
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